Razing of the Riv bittersweet for longtime locals

By John Katsilometes

Sunday, March 1, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Before applauding the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s zeal to expand the Las Vegas Convention Center to the Strip to try to snare another 3 million visitors a year, let’s remember Rossi Ralenkotter’s junior prom.

“I do remember, after junior prom, going to a show at the Riviera,” said Ralenkotter, the LVCVA’s CEO and president. “Over the years, I’ve seen the Kingston Trio there, Harry Belafonte, a lot of different entertainers. The Supremes were there … It was part of the history of growing up here, to go to the Riviera.”

Ralenkotter hardly could have imagined when he was a Bishop Gorman Gael that one day he would be the man to order demolition crews to flatten the resort. The LVCVA board of directors recently voted unanimously to buy the Riviera for $182.5 million and spend another $8.5 million to finalize the deal and raze the hotel.

Ralenkotter has a unique understanding of Las Vegas’ history and culture. His family moved here in 1951. He has seen virtually every major Las Vegas hotel construction and demolition.

“It’s bittersweet, when you think about the Riviera and what it means,” Ralenkotter said. “It was the first high-rise we had on the Strip, more or less. It has always had great brand recognition, and it still has great brand recognition. I think it would have been great, for all of the implosions, if we could have just moved the hotels and made them a museum somewhere.”

Ralenkotter remembers when the Riviera was being planned for construction, not implosion.

“(Similar) decisions when the Riviera was being built are being made now about the expansion: This is going to be great for Las Vegas, it is going to bring more people to the city,” Ralenkotter said. “The Riviera was part of that big building boom we saw on the Strip in the ’50s and early ’60s and has survived a lot of change.”

But it will not live past summer. Operator Paragon Gaming set a closing date of May 4. The LVCVA could move forward with plans to implode the property as early as the end of June.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman broached the possibility of the Las Vegas Country Club being picked up by the LVCVA for its $2.3 billion Las Vegas Global Business District, of which the Riviera property is the anchor. The convention authority also had considered buying the former LVH before Westgate Resorts bought it in July.

Ralenkotter said the LVCVA isn’t finished scouring the neighborhood for more convention space.

“Anything we would look at would need to be contiguous to our properties,” Ralenkotter said. “If there are pieces that make any sense, for us to move forward, we would have to look at price and make sure we can keep our convention and trade-show delegates together.”

Ralenkotter said investment in, and advancement of, the north Strip by the convention authority would help invigorate Genting Behad’s multibillion-dollar Resorts World Las Vegas, as well as the resort conceived by Crown Resorts chief James Packer and Andrew Pascal on the former New Frontier site. Neither project has a timeline for groundbreaking or construction.

“Our anticipation is we’ll see those projects moving forward,” Ralenkotter said. “I think other investors will want to be in proximity of 2.5 million to 3 million conventioneers and delegates every year coming through. This will be an economic stimulus for the whole area.”

In the interim, the Riviera will be reduced to dust and memories.

“You have to capture that history how you can, through the photos and by the written word,” Ralenkotter said. “There is a sadness about this. There are very few of those properties that are left that were originally part of the Strip. I’ve seen these things happen, and there is a lot of nostalgia connected to these places. But again, you’ve got to look to the future and what this is going to do for us in the next 35 years.”