Las Vegas: Sneak peek at Palms Casino Resort's $620 million makeover

Palms Casino Resort, a one-time Las Vegas hot spot that hosted a season of MTV's "Real World" and Katy Perry's "Waking up in Vegas'' video, hopes to regain its hipness with a $620 million renovation.

The 1,365-room hotel and casino, about a mile off the Strip behind Bellagio and across the street from Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino and Gold Coast Hotel & Casino, started the multi-year makeover after it was sold in 2016 and began unveiling key elements of the dramatic new look in May. 

Highlights of the first phase of the renovation: 

• Redesigned rooms, suites, penthouses and the signature Sky Villas in the hotel's 342-room Fantasy Tower. The one- and two-story villas, which have infinity pools and range from $25,000 to $45,000 a night, come with a chauffeured ride to and from the airport, 24-hour butler service, sauna, massage room and top-of-the-line amenities including Dyson hair dryers and a gym with Woodway Treadmills and Peloton bikes.  The villas have their own reservation department.  Palms has three towers: Ivory Tower, Fantasy Tower and Palms Place, which are individually owned condos included in the hotel's inventory. The 428-room Ivory Tower, which houses the hotels cheapest rooms,  was renovated in 2012. 
   
• Several new restaurants, including a new buffet, noodle house and Scotch 80 Prime, a steakhouse. It replaces longtime Palms steakhouse N9NE, which closed in September 2017.
• A new nightclub, APEX Social Club, which replaced Ghostbar, the Palms' rooftop bar with among the best views in Vegas. Ghostbar closed last fall. 
• A redesigned casino floor with a shark tank. Yes, a shark tank. Towering over the casino's new center bar, Unknown Bar, is a 13-foot-long tiger shark divided into three parts within a steel tank. It's a piece of art from British contemporary artist Damien Hirst's Natural History series and is the most buzzed about addition to the Palms.
• Forty new casino table games, with phone charging outlets at the seats. (But you still can't use your phone while playing blackjack, roulette, poker and other games.)
• A mini art museum. The new owners of The Palms, billionaire brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta of Station Casinos and parent Red Rock Resorts,  are avid art collectors. The pair, who used to own Ultimate Fighting Championship,  contributed a number of their personal pieces to the resort and the resort commissioned new pieces. One of them: a hot pink neon "Wish You Were Here Sign'' behind the front desk and colorful, giant balloon-like letters spelling out Palms outside the main entrance. The latter is already an Instagram star. 

A head-to-toe makeover

The theme of the Palms renovation: "From Dust to Gold.''

"We were inspired by a Pablo Picasso quote, "Every act of creation is first an action of destruction,' '' said Palms general manager Jon Gray. "And that's literally what we're doing.''

A big goal of the overhaul is to make the Palms, which opened in 2001, buzzworthy again. Gray remembers when it was, having worked at the hotel from 2005 to 2012. The hotel was created by the Maloof family, whose other business interests at the time included the Sacramento Kings basketball team.

So far, Gray said, the hotel's new contemporary art collection, concerts in the revamped Pearl Theater (Alice in Chains, Peter Frampton, Korn and Zac Brown Band are among those on tap in September), Apex Social Club and restaurants like Scotch 80 are drawing increased interest from celebrities, social media "influencers" and other hip travelers from from Los Angeles, New York, Miami and other cities.

"it's great to see that momentum come back,'' he said.

Room rates likely to rise, especially in Fantasy Tower

The hotel hopes, of course, that will translate into higher rates. Gray boasts that the new Palms will be the "best in the city'' but when pressed says he thinks the makeover will put it in the same category as high end hotels including Wynn Las Vegas and Cosmopolitan Las Vegas.

Room rates this fall in the Ivory Tower and Palms Place start at about $99 a night for a standard room in the Ivory Tower during the week and $228 most weekends, based on search of Palms' website. Rooms in the Fantasy Tower start at $139 a night, suites at $199 a night. Want to stay in the "Real World'' suite of MTV fame? A weekend stay in the three-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot feet in mid-September is $4,000 a night. A regular resort room in the Fantasy Tower that weekend starts at $319 a night.

Resort fee to increase Oct. 1

Travelers headed to the Palms in the next several months need to know three things beyond the flashy new features: construction is still going on in some areas, the hotel's main pool is closed through next spring (guests are sent to the pool at Palms Place) and the nightly resort fee is going up Oct. 1.

The Palms' new resort fee will be $39 plus tax, up from $32 plus tax. That puts it in line with high-end Strip hotels including Aria, Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Cosmopolitan Las Vegas. (Cosmopolitan already announced plans to boost its fee to $39 beginning Jan. 1.)

 Resort fees have been on the rise in Las Vegas and other vacation destinations and now routinely top $30 a night.

Parking will remain free for guests and locals

 Parking fees have also become de rigueur at Las Vegas hotels and visitors and hotel guests aren't happy. Palms said it will continue to offer free parking and a free shuttle to The Strip.

"That's a big part of our DNA,'' Gray said. "It's (parking fees) not something that we’re interested in imposing on our guests.''

Room rates this fall start at $99 a night for a standard room during the week and $228 most weekends, based on search of Palms' website. Fantasy Tower rates are higher.

Next up: More restaurants, new spa, new nightclub and pool club

The Palms' renovation work will continue through 2019. Still to come: new themed suites; more casino additions; several marquee restaurants including Mabel's, a barbeque restaurant from James Beard and Iron Chef winner Michael Symon, Vetri Cucina from James Beard Chef and an unnamed restaurant from celebrity chef Bobby Flay; a new nightclub; a year-round pool party club; and a spa.

Other Las Vegas renovations underway

Palms isn't the only big Las Vegas hotel getting a major facelift. The former Monte Carlo on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip has been transformed into Park MGM, with new rooms, a theater and restaurants including an always-packed outpost of Chicago steakhouse Bavette's. Still to come at Park MGM: NoMad Las Vegas, a hotel within a hotel, and Eataly Las Vegas, the tourist-magnet food hall created by Mario Batali.

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