Unlike the contemporaries of the Rat Pack era, the Sahara has avoided dating demolition teams

Instead, new owners SBE Entertainment, based in Los Angeles, and the Stockbridge Real Estate Fund in San Francisco have invested just over $2 million since August to refurbish and make cosmetic changes to the 55-year-old Streep Hotel Casino’s main public spaces.

The outdoor landscaping in the Sahara has been trimmed and tidied. New carpets and wallpapers have refurbished the hotel lobby. Sofas and chairs provide customers with comfortable seating near the lobby and two main entrances to the accommodation.

Hotel workers show off their new uniforms, and the building’s restaurants, including the esteemed aristocratic gourmet room, are awash with new menus. The towels at the Sahara pool are larger and hers.

Large black-and-white photos of legendary performers who revelled in the Sahara in the 1960s and 1970s seem to shine brighter these days on the perch behind the hotel’s front desk.

“It makes our customers feel better, it makes our employees feel better, it makes us feel better,” said Arash Azarzin, the president of the SBE Hotel Group, which also serves as the president of the Sahara Desert. He said the quick renovation was similar to what the company did when it acquired the Le Meridien Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. “We wanted to give our customers some value back,” Azarzin said.

Meanwhile, SBE has brought together two longtime Las Vegas-based hotel casino contractors and architects to determine what shape the Morroccan-themed resort will take in the future. The process can last anywhere between eight months and a year.

“We have to understand who we are and who we are,” Azarbardzin said. “We are a historic property. Every version of our master plan involves keeping the hotel intact. There are parts we can demolish and remodel, but we won’t see a major collapse here.”

Azarbazin said SBE, a managing partner of the Sahara Desert, has hired Manel Coraro Associates, a contractor for Win Las Vegas, Bellagio and other strip hotel casinos, as the total contractor. Bergman, Walls and Associates, who developed and redeveloped The Miraza, Paris Las Vegas, and Treasure Island, are the architects for the Sahara redesign.

“It’s a great team looking at every facet of Sahara,” Azarbardzin said. “We’re not in a hurry. We want to figure out what we’re going to do and pay for it.” It is the Book Strip region that has also changed for the Sahara Desert. Several new developments have taken place since March, when the founder and co-owner of SBE, Sam Najarian, signed a document to purchase the 1,720-room Sahara Desert and 18 acres of land for between $300 million and $400 million.

The $2.8 billion Fontainebleau, with nearly 4,000 hotel rooms, is under construction just below the block. Ultimately, the height of the Crown Las Vegas hotel tower has yet to be determined, but next to the Sahara Desert, there are $5 billion and 5,000 mixed-use projects planned. Across the street from the strip, MGM Mirage has purchased 26 acres of land and plans to develop a large hotel casino in partnership with Kerzner Holdings International, the developer of the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort in the Bahamas.

Nazarian, a 32-year-old Los Angeles entrepreneur, said determining what the northern end of the strip will look like over the next decade will determine the redesign of the Sahara Desert. “Going forward, we have to differentiate ourselves,” Nazarian said. “We are focused on our customers in Las Vegas and the Sahara. We want our project to fit in the right space, no matter what the 2010 or 2011 landscape is.”

Since March, Nazarian has become a historian of the Sahara Desert, which opened in 1952 and is considered one of the last remaining campsites of the Rat Pack. Sands, Dunes, Stardust, New Frontier, and other historic strip hotel casinos have been submerged in memory for the past decade. Nazarian said the redeveloped Sahara Desert will pass through some of the original elements of the property, but the name may not remain.

“It’s still a decision to be made, and we’re working on it,” Nazarian said. “Sahara is an amazing name and it’s known all over the world, but we don’t know yet if it will stay in a hotel or just be a part of a building. For me, history is just as important as all the hotel rooms that will be built around us.” 사설 토토사이트

Sahara was the setting for the original movie “Ocean’s Eleven,” and the hotel’s Congo showroom invited famous performers such as Johnny Carson, Tina Turner, Connie Francis, Pat Boone, Don Rickles, Dean Martin, and Jerry Lewis Near Atrophy Telethon.

Nazarian, who owns and manages Los Angeles-area nightclubs and restaurants and runs a Hollywood film division in addition to a hotel group, said he wants to reclaim some of the old magic of the Sahara through renovations. Some of that restored popularity can be found by adding several stores in SBE’s popular nightclubs and restaurants.

“We have been contacted several times to bring some of our trendy restaurants to Las Vegas,” said Azarbarzin.