To the editor: Read with much interest Mr. John Barrette's Nevada Appeal story about the Ormsby House 15 year rebuilding project. The basic problem seems to be the owners are not hotel industry people. They are computer experts.
Lee Iaccoca wrote years ago in his autobiography that hospitals don't suddenly ask physicians to change their specialties. As in, "You are a great heart surgeon-let's see how you do as a neurologist."
Mr. Iacocca was writing then about how Ford owned a few companies that had nothing to do with the car business. He quickly sold those businesses when he became CEO of Ford.
I am no expert, but unless someone loves and also knows the hotel-casino business they should stay away from any type of hotel project.
The Las Vegas hotel implosions Mr. Lehr talked about?
As cited, for many years, some aging hotels in prime locations are imploded in Las Vegas. However, Las Vegas is a location where some land is very expensive, and a hotel may have vital customer needs to be built bigger and better for a fast growing market.
They may need more ballroom space to host larger special events, or a large convention hall. They don't do hotel implosions and massive rebuilds because a place lacks decent insulation.
The Ormsby House was fine in size and scope for Carson City. It needed paint, and decent new furniture — not a massive rebuild.The closing of the corner bar, the massive portico move and the pool work were huge projects that would have proved nothing in attracting guests. The owners could have leased the OH hotel casino to an experienced company that simply runs hotels. Ramada, Sheraton, Capstar, Hilton, and Hyatt all seem like good candidates.
The Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe has even leased their casino to a company that Mr. Iacocca now runs called Full House Resorts.
I am curious how a major hotel operator like Hyatt Hotels would have handled the Ormsby House as a Hyatt project. It might have made the Ormsby House story interesting to ask a developer from Hyatt or another hotel management company like Ramada Hotels to speak on or off the record how they would have handled a project like the OH.
How would Meruelo Group have completed this project? The Meruelo Group bought the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno and its 37 acres of land for under $40 million several years ago and have worked on a large refitting and rebuilding while still in full operation.
Here's a story link where a huge company failed in the hotel industry in a large growing market.
Princess Cruises tried to enter the hotel market 28 years ago with a $51 million dollar beautiful new hotel (with inflation-that would be $ 112 million dollars now) in Garden Grove (near Disneyland) called the Alicante Princess.
The same well trained and smart staff who ran the Princess Cruise line simply had no idea how to run a hotel. The business models of a hotel and a cruise line seem similar, too. One thing I noted is a cruise line has a captive audience, where a hotel does not. The hotel property itself was majority owned by Dr. Robert Beauchamp, a legendary Southern California dentist known for being a pioneer in credit dentistry.
After just two years he realized a management change had to be made at the Alicante Princess Hotel. Dr. Beauchamp was very wealthy, but he knew better than trying to run the Alicante Princess hotel himself.
Hyatt Hotels took the Alicante Princess Hotel over, and for many years it's been doing well. Worldwide Hyatt has over 549 hotels — and they seem to know what they are doing in the hotel business.
— Bob Custer Wilkie