1. Welcome to VegasMessageBoard
    It appears you are visiting our community as a guest.
    In order to view full-size images, participate in discussions, vote in polls, etc, you will need to Log in or Register.

Hard Rock Tampa Construction Updates

Discussion in 'Non-Vegas Casino Hotels' started by Chump, May 20, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Chump

    Chump Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2016
    Messages:
    150
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    50
    The new hotel tower continues to rise but my best guess is that it’s a year off. HR is redecorating their Center Casino again with a goal of making it appear the same as the upscale Mezzanine Casino which they opened last year. It is highly attractive Wynn or Palazzo look. The biggest part of the project is the reshaping of the high ceiling with arches. They are taking it a section at a time so it really doesn’t affect the casino overall operations.

    The most consequential change for me is the closure of the Center Bar from June 3rd to sometime in October. They intend to tear it down and completely rebuild it to conform to the new décor and ceiling. The overall seating and footprint will remain the same. While some complain of poor video poker at HR, the Center Bar offered a dollar DDB progressive and a sequential royal which is otherwise mostly extinct in other casinos. They also offered quarter 9/6 TDB and 8/5 SDB which you won’t find on the Strip or Biloxi. My wife and I have pulled a 100 hand pays from there in the past three years at the dollar level. Our fear is that they will change the VP games to the vanilla 7/5 B, 8/5 JOB, 9/6 DB and 8/5 DDB which mostly appear elsewhere. We wouldn’t be surprised to see them go with a dollar minimum denomination either. Corporations don’t pay for improvements and overspending, the patrons do in reduced gaming value. I recall when Treasure Island tore down their Battle and Swashbucklers VP bars back around 2003. TI was never the same for us again. I think we are going to feel the same about this change.
     
  2. Chump

    Chump Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2016
    Messages:
    150
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    50
    Actually, it really was a dark and stormy night, a fitting atmosphere to commence a week long wake commemorating the closure/reconstruction of the Center Bar. The video poker regulars there all shared in the dominate conversation of, now what? The reality everywhere is that casinos have become more about entertainment and tourism than gambling. Our common expectations ranged from no improvement in the gaming to abhorrent game selection, higher denominations and lousy paytables. HR will spend millions on this small area on everything but that which would be appreciated by the regular players. But, the new bar sure will be pretty. It will look great on a property brochure and be a good place to sit and stare at the ceiling while sipping on an overpriced drink once or twice a year. It will be attractive to the tourists who won’t be there long enough to even notice the cost loading for the new visuals. Now, either it’s off to the VP banks on the casino floor with the intimacy, privacy and comfort of coach seating on a discount airline or it’s time to back away. Some of us plan on a four to five month gambling furlough. Having been turned off by the past evolutions at the Mirage, then Treasure Island, then the Bellagio, and finally the Beau, maybe we’re ready to retire from the touristy casino scene altogether. Tourism is far more authentic in Hawaii or in Europe.

    Some of the Center Bar crew has been there for years and most are well appreciated and liked by the regulars. They are a handsome and pleasant group who sincerely try to provide the best service and comradery they can. To HR’s credit, management is trying to move them about the casino to maintain their hours amongst the other six bars, several new proposed portables and seven service bars. However, as with any hospitality worker, their hourly wages are inconsequential. They feed and house themselves based upon their tips and I doubt if any of them will do as well placed elsewhere in the casino. Some are just going to have to move on. Fortunately, a few have recently graduated from college and it is time for them to move into their careers anyway. We hate that we will be out of face to face contact with these younger adults for up to five months. One in particular will have to confront a critical situation in a few months. My hope is that his exceptionally strong family unit will enable him to endure the extreme stress which is coming.

    It has been five months since we last took a good look at the new hotel tower construction. The best guest viewing of it is from the roof of the Lucky St Parking Garage. It must be time for us to do so again as the HR Spa will be moving into their new digs in this area next weekend. The only worthwhile views from either the new or older tower will be overlooking the new expansive pool area which I understand will be on the second level along with the Spa. Hard Rock Tampa has come a very long way from its bingo hall origin of a decade and a half ago. They will have spent many hundreds of millions in developing one of the larger and more attractive casino properties in the country. Each month, they give away at least a million in free play and prizes to just about anyone who walks in which also scares me. I wish them the best that this all works out for them even if not for me.
     
  3. bluesdude

    bluesdude VIP Whale

    Joined:
    Dec 21, 2013
    Messages:
    2,204
    Location:
    Northern IL
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    46
    Sounds like this might be an amicable breakup between you and Hard Rock Chump. Change sucks but somehow we all get through it.
     
    Dead & Co with my son! June 4 or 5th - June 8th
  4. Chump

    Chump Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2016
    Messages:
    150
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    50
    Hard Rock posted a press release on their website last Wednesday regarding their construction plans to further expand their Tampa casino. They spent $100mm last year and the ongoing plans will add up to an additional $700mm investment. They mentioned 5,000 slots, 200 tables and 200,000 sq ft of gaming but they already have that. The money will be spent on further remodeling of the existing casino as well as a new hotel tower and several new restaurants. The Rise Café will also be redesigned and relocated. They will build three new pools between the towers and open an adjacent large outdoor grill. They have just opened a new 25,000 sq ft spa. The new tower will have a private casino on the top floor for VIP guest. Hard Rock is clearly targeting the 116,000,000 tourists which come to Florida each year intending to become a destination resort as this expansion will go far beyond any local’s casino. Even during the off season, the casino already looks like a NYE crowd every weekend evening. We doubt if we will enjoy it any more or even as much as we have to date.

    We visited HR to savor the final days of the Center Bar during its last week enjoying three winning nights and lots of reminiscing. The regular patrons and bar crew looked upon this time as a week-long Wake. A few of the female bartenders left their last shifts with tears in their eyes and one of the guys got physically ill. We had become well acquainted with a dozen of them over the past seven years but sadly I doubt if we ever see half of them again. They just won’t be able to carry themselves financially for four to five months at a reduced income from other placements in the casino. They closed the bar at 11:00pm on Sunday. We were there. The techs came up and shut the machines down and then security guided the guest out. We were determined not to let anyone else play the final games on our favorite machines which had played so well for us for so long. When the bar re-opens sometime in October, there will be all new bartops with whatever games. As the old tune goes, “We may never pass this way again”. In fact, it’s probably time for us to find something altogether new. This will be the fifth casino which we loved but lost heart in with changes. We never left any of them, they left us.
     
    • Informative Informative x 1
  5. Tonyfromjersey

    Tonyfromjersey High-Roller

    Joined:
    Jul 19, 2017
    Messages:
    726
    Location:
    Orlando, Florida
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    25
    The state of Florida is incredibly stupid and the Indians are very smart. The Seminole have essentially bought a monopoly on Casinos in this state. Florida gets an absurd amount of money for NOT allowing gambling except by the seminoles. Yes the seminoles would stop paying the state if gambling were legalized statewide and the state coffers would suffer only briefly but the money Florida would get from casinos across the state would dwarf what the Indians are giving them. What do Floridians get in return for this deal. Shitty Indian casinos I hate the hard rock. Super tight machines, sky high table minimums, sky high room rates. I’d rather go to Vegas 2 maybe 3 times a years than ever go to the hard rock again.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. Tonyfromjersey

    Tonyfromjersey High-Roller

    Joined:
    Jul 19, 2017
    Messages:
    726
    Location:
    Orlando, Florida
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    25
    I apologize if my post above was off topic. I don’t believe my scathing indictment of the casino situation in Florida or my feelings about the seminoles was warranted by this thread. Again my apologies
     
  7. todd7764

    todd7764 Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2016
    Messages:
    455
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    3
    You were a little harsh in tone, but you're right-on about facts. They ARE incredibly tight with the gambling here. Beautiful resort, and getting nicer, but a very expensive proposition.
     
  8. Chump

    Chump Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2016
    Messages:
    150
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    50
    Over the past twenty-five years, we have played in most every casino in Vegas, Tahoe, Biloxi and St. Louis so we know what’s out there. We dearly loved each of our past home casinos but one by one, they lost their charm, appeal and welcoming to us. What we retained was our fondness for video poker. I think just about every casino in the country has been nominated for the “Tightest Slots” award. The only indicator a player has is, as goes the stated VP paytables, so goes the slot returns and by comparison, Tampa looks decent. My wife and I as well as a number of other patrons we know have done better here than any other place simply because of our familiarity with the machines and the cycles they seem to go through.

    HR’s corporate and casino management, their interior designers and architects and the slots themselves, all come from Vegas. Accordingly, these folks find it most natural to try to make Tampa like what they know best. As locals, we look for a nice, clean, safe casino to visit weekly and be able to play with decent odds so as to minimize our losses. Our fear regarding the Tampa HR isn’t that it’s going native but that it is becoming too much like Vegas. A casino can’t help but be smitten by the thought of luring 116,000,000 tourists in and us faithful’s are being taken for granted. The only reason we have Hard Rock Casinos in Florida is because of Charlie Crist. Few pol’s before or after him have been willing to seriously address gambling. Given the culture here, we are never going to see another casino in Florida within our lifetimes. Getting HR was a complete fluke but it cost them $250mm/year to operate here.

    One recent experience at HR helps explain HR’s environment. A white female in her mid-40’s sat down next to me midafternoon. She seemed somewhat dazed and was talking to herself and dropping money out of her purse. The bartender wasn’t about to serve her anything but water. A few minutes later, two Seminole policemen walked up and started a long, gentle conversation with the woman. By the end of their talk, I overheard that she was living in North Florida, having marital problems and was essentially on a binge. Then one officer told her, Mam, with the bi-polar medication you have in your purse and the drinking you have admitted to, I must take you to a hospital immediately. She refused and the officer again pleaded with, “Please let me take you to a hospital where they can care for you, you won’t like what must come next if you don’t”. With that, the three slowly walked out. I think the policemen probably saved her life, I know they have saved others.
     
  9. VegasKing

    VegasKing High-Roller

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2008
    Messages:
    504
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    100
    Haven't been in a few years, but I went after their last big remodel. Always liked the casino and the rooms. Center bar is where I got my first and only royal flush, so that helps.
     
  10. Chump

    Chump Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2016
    Messages:
    150
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    50
    Vegas King,
    Good for you! My wife and I had hit many royals at the Center Bar, particularly on just two machines. There is one I regret more than anything that has happened to me in a casino. The north end of the bar provided the fifty thousand credit “Sequential Royal”. I know of at least six that were hit there over the past several years and I swung at it every visit to HR looking at the positioning of the dealt cards. One day, I had pounded away for well over an hour there unable to hit anything. I moved to the east side and within ten minutes, I was dealt four hearts to the royal lacking the ten. I drew and it popped up for the royal. I took a closer look at it and yup, it was A,K,Q,J,10 of hearts. I was at fifty cents so I won $2,000. Had I hit a few minutes earlier, I would have won $25,000. The odds of hitting one are 1-2,000,000 but I’ve actually had four sequentials over the years but not one was on a sequential paying machine. Apparently the slot club intends to delete the sequential royal on the new replacement machines. My quest is over.
     
  11. Chump

    Chump Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2016
    Messages:
    150
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    50
    The Center Bar reopened on October 3rd after tearing down the original bar to below the concrete deck back on June 1st. The footprint is virtually identical. It is a very attractive video poker bar. The machines are all new as is everything else. It came at a price tag of $4.4MM. As always, the patrons are going to pay for the update by virtue of downgraded paytables. The $ DDB progressive and the sequential royals are gone. The quarter; 8/5 JOB, 7/5 B, 9/6 TDB and 8/5 SDB have been replaced with 7/5 JOB, 6/5 B, 9/6 DB and 8/5 TDB. The former quad games are still available in a bank of slant backs nearby and the others around the casino. At dollar, you find 8/5 JOB, 7/5 B and 9/5 TDB. The best VP game left is $ 9/6 DDB. They have kept Keno on five of the machines and added roulette and BJ to all the others. We will always rate the old Fontana at Bellagio overlooking the Fountains from afar, the Battle Bar at TI overlooking the Pirate Battle and the old Breeze at the Beau as the most attractive and fun but this is a very nice bar with an excellent staff.

    The bar staff suffered financially during the shutdown. They were all given hours around the casino but no one made anywhere near as much money as they had been making here. It will take them a long time to make up what they have lost. The one employee who had faced a heartbreaking situation has told us that so far so good on their child’s condition.

    There was a “Hollywood attractive” young lady who was part of the original Center Bar crew a decade back. She was outstanding in every way and as kind and considerate as anyone you have ever met. She must have come in contact with many tens of thousands of people over the years. Everyone thought very highly of her! She married a sheriff deputy five years ago and transferred to HR’s Council Oak Steakhouse. Just recently, she was promoted to a casino management position. Everyone remains in shock after her husband shot her and then himself leaving four children orphaned several weeks ago. There will never be an explanation to this horrible tragedy.

    HR’s expanded Noodle Bar will open next week and the new Lobby Bar in December. The new hotel tower and its casino along with two new restaurants will not open until next summer. Already huge, the casino will be enormous when its $700MM expansion is done.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.