Nevadans join hotel-closure warning
Letter to Congress predicts foreclosure wave
Hotel owners are facing an “unprecedented wave” of foreclosures without federal help with commercial debt relief, according to a Tuesday letter from the industry to Congress.
Nearly 1 in 4 hotels were at least a month late on their mortgage loan payments as of July, the highest figure on record, according to a recent report released by analysis firm Trepp. Just 1.34 percent of hotels were in the same boat at the end of 2019, the report said. Industry watchers said that figure is alarming, if expected.
Sahara Las Vegas Vice President of Sales Christopher Bond, Nevada Hotel and Lodging Association President Diane Gandy and Henderson-based Argento Hospitality Group Managing Director Paula Argento are among the 20 people from Nevada who signed the letter to Congress with nearly 4,000 others from across the country.
A statement on behalf of Bond said he signed the letter as an individual member of the American Hospitality and Lodging Association, not as a representative of Sahara Las Vegas. Requests for comment from the Nevada Hotel and Lodging Association and others were not returned.
The letter to Congress called for passage of the Helping Open Properties Endeavor Act, or HOPE Act, which is billed as helping to prevent commercial real estate foreclosures, specifically to borrowers of commercial mortgages.
More jobs at risk
A UNLV hospitality professor was surprised there weren’t more Nevada names on the letter given the state’s economic reliance on tourism and the industry’s unknown future.
“This is a time where you need big brother helping you to keep the economy going,” said Mehmet Erdem, associate professor of hotel operations and technology.
“The other two are smaller properties, and it’s a demand-based calculation on our part,” Smith said in the call. “So once the demand starts to pick up, both downtown as well as around the two smaller properties, that’s when you’d see us reopen those. We don’t have any dates right now.”
The casino, renovated in 1997 and 2007, has 30,000 square feet with more than 400 slot machines, keno and bingo parlors and a sportsbook. It closed March 17, when
Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered all of the state’s casinos to shut down as a means of reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Several casinos reopened June 4, and many others have gradually reopened since then.