Downtown hotels upgrade their looks, not rates
El Cortez and the Plaza are brightened by makeovers, yet rooms are priced right.
Quick quiz: How many Vegas-goers you know prefer staying downtown?
Grandma and Grandpa may have raved about 99cent shrimp cocktails back in the day and sworn that Binion’s was the only place for real gamblers, but the ’80s brought the bigness and bling binge of building along the Strip that helped teetertotter downtown into urban blight.
Perhaps the best thing to happen to downtown hotels was the worst thing to happen to Las Vegas: The 200810 economic nose dive coaxed bargain hunters to consider this area. It might have been short on luster, but it was long on cheap. The only drawback: Affordability mostly equaled dismal lodgings.
That’s not strictly true anymore. Bookending Fremont Street, two longtime hotels, El Cortez and the Plaza, have recently undergone renovation that brightened rooms but didn’t boost prices. Recent nights spent at each venue suggest that a downtown stay can be a nice deal and a nice experience.
Of the makeovers, El Cortez’s is the edgier. Freshening at this landmark Vegas venue began in 2007 and continues. For visitors, the big change is the redo of the rooms in the property’s two buildings. In the central tower, all 300 rooms were redesigned in a motif called “The Big Sleep,” reflecting the town’s underworld legacy. (Striped carpeting, for instance, is intended to resemble a mobster’s pinstriped suit.)
The hotel building across Ogden Street was “a dump,” a check-in clerk cheerfully acknowledged, speaking of its earlier days. But now it’s been recast to reflect the oasis of urban hipness that is the Fremont East District redevelopment project.
This few-block walk along Fremont Street, which links El Cortez to the canopied Fremont Street Experience, has evolved into an artsy-trendy-youthful stretch of clubs and shops.
The 102 rooms were whittled down to 64 “cabana suites.” The smoke-free cabana rooms sport marble bathrooms and ipod docking systems; chrome accents and bright South Beach colors provide a stylish experience. (Downsides included no dresser, noise from the small in-room fridge and more than a bit of noise from first-floor rooms facing the street.)
There’s an attractive price point: Sunday-thursday stays are in the $31-$53a-night range, and advance bookings keep most weekends well under $100.
The far end of Fremont street dead-ends at the Plaza Hotel & Casino, formerly the Union Plaza. This 1,000-room location has taken a more traditional — and opportunistic — approach to its redo.
Again, the economy’s swan dive proved to be downtown’s gain. On the north end of the Strip, when the planned Fontainebleau Las Vegas resort ran out of financing, corporate raider Carl Icahn swooped in and bought the distressed property. In 2010, he sold off the interior fixtures, furniture, rugs, etc., for pennies on the dollar to owners of the seenbetter-days Plaza.
Better days for real arrived at the Plaza on Sept. 1, when the newly spiffed-up hotel reopened. Here nonweekend rates hover in the $27-$53 range, and weekend stays can be had inexpensively even for traditionally sized floor plans.
Rooms come in subduedto-classy red, brown and gray color schemes. This motif continues in hallways and on the casino floor; the once-small lobby is now comfy and inviting, with oversized black-and-white photos of old-time Vegas. This visual theme extends to the rooms, where exterior images of the old Union Plaza at its peak decorate the walls. The flaws are few: Many doors reflect the scars of earlier times, sink stoppers can be elusive and thread counts could be higher, but, overall, it’s a comfortable landing.
The Plaza has also updated amenities at the property. The signature addition: December saw, in an airy, domed space, the opening of the on-site steakhouse to which former Mayor Oscar Goodman lent his name. Oscar’s trumpets a throwback theme of “beef, booze and broads.” The “broads” are said to be table-side companions.
But the Plaza’s strongest allure is its location. Walk 20 feet out the front door, wait for the light to turn and step right into the Fremont Street Experience and its eateries, shops and casinos, downtown’s essential draw.
After all, what good is a nice place to stay if you can’t conveniently spend all that money you just saved?
travel@latimes.com