Sunset Station, Red Rock Resorts’ 28-year-old, 448-room Henderson property, will be the next corporate resort to undergo a major renovation, company officials said Tuesday during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
The Las Vegas-based casino giant for locals reported record quarterly net income and cash flow for the ninth consecutive quarter, justifying the planned $87 million investment that is scheduled to begin within the next four months and be completed in early 2027.
“We are pleased to announce the next phase of Sunset Station, designed to further strengthen the company’s competitiveness and broaden its customer appeal, positioning it to take advantage of the strong demographic trends and continued growth in the Henderson market, particularly from the master-planned communities of Ascaya and Cadence, which are expected to deliver more than 12,500 new office housekeeping businesses prepared in Chief Financial Officer in Chief C. remarks during the call.
High-end success
Cootey said the company’s high-end customers drive Red Rock’s success. He said the next phase of development at Sunset will include expanding and improving the property’s movie theaters as well as moving a temporary bingo area currently housed in a former buffet space to a new permanent location.
“(For) the bingo move, we converted to a new high-end steakhouse and high-limit table games room, leveraging a proven strategy of investing in the higher segments of our database, which consistently generated strong returns across our portfolio,” Cootey said.
Red Rock’s biggest casino rival for locals, Boyd Gaming Corp., also expects neighborhood growth to lead to better results. In an earnings call last week, Boyd CEO Keith Smith announced an earlier opening of the company’s Cadence Crossing Casino on Boulder Highway, from mid-year to the end of March, to take advantage of exploding growth in the Cadence neighborhood.
Red Rock is using the same growth strategy with its Durango property in southwest Las Vegas. In mid-December, the company opened a high-limit slot room and a multi-level 2,000-space parking garage just two years after the resort’s 2023 grand opening.
Within a month of that, Durango announced it is investing $385 million for its second expansion that will include an additional 400 slot machines, a 36-lane bowling alley, luxury movie theaters, several new restaurant and dining concepts, and several new entertainment venues.
“Once this expansion is complete, we believe Durango will be better positioned to capture additional market share and drive sustainable growth in the local market,” Cootey said.
Dividends
Red Rock will pay a special dividend of $1 per share on February 27 to shareholders of record on February 20 and a quarterly dividend of 26 cents per share on March 31 to shareholders of record on March 16.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the company reported net income of $84.6 million, 75 cents per share, on revenue of $511.8 million. That compares with net income of $87.7 million, 76 cents per share, on revenue of $495.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.
“Robust visits and theoretical net profit across our local database, as well as our regional and national customers, are driving the highest fourth quarter revenue and profitability in our gaming business in the company’s history,” Cootey said.
In response to a question about Red Rock’s Super Bowl performance, President Scott Kreeger said Station Casinos did not experience any of the weak results that occurred at other Las Vegas properties.
“I had the pleasure of visiting the properties on Sunday and walking with the general managers and … I can tell you there is no better place to be on a Super Bowl weekend than a Station Casino property,” he said. “We had every property fully programmed, whether it was the bars, the VIP section, and we had decent results from a betting perspective and even better from a gaming perspective on slots and food and beverage. If there was any slowdown anywhere else, it wasn’t at our properties.”
Red Rock shares, which trade on the Nasdaq exchange, closed up $1.28, or 1.3 percent, at $66.79 a share, on volume that was nearly double the daily average.
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