Former Wendover, Utah Mayor and local entrepeneur Steve Perry was the winning bidder for the Rusty Palm in a sparsely attended auction Thursday.
Perry’s winning bid of $450,000 was less than double the $250,000 opening call.
According to the rules of the auction the bid must be approved by the seller, Celtic Bank, who also has first right of refusal.
The Rusty Palms won final approval from the West Wendover City Council in November 2008 and construction began almost immediately and continued through the winter on the estimated $2.5 million project. However while workers began building Weinstein began to receive troubling news, several of the businesses who first expressed interest in began to receive troubling news, several of the businesses who first expressed interest in coming to the Palms either backed out or went out of business as the Great Recession began to take its toll in Utah.
Facing prospects of a diminishing list of possible tenant Weinstein began to look for ways to save his investment and found one– turn it into a casino.
The only hitch to the plan was West Wendover 150 room hotel room minimum ordinance passed the year before.
Six years ago the council passed an ordinance severely restricting new casino development and putting a requirement that a new casino had to have at least 150 hotel rooms before it could win council okay.
The restrictions are not unique to West Wendover. Indeed several Nevada cities have similar restrictions on the books.
However in West Wendover’s case the city has not seen a new casino since 1986 with the exception of a small slot operation inside the Pilot Truck Stop.
And if there is anyone who can turn the economyc growth engine back on it may be only Steve Perry.
Perry’s entry into the public life and the private sector was a true change of life story. For over 20 years Perry was considered and considered himself a loyal State Line casino man who rose through the ranks of then the largest company in Wendover to the position of Director of Properties.
It was a good job and considered safe. Perry could have stayed on toed the company line and earned himself a nice salary and look forward to a nice retirement.
But then something changed.
In 1992 Perry who was considering a run for the city council found himself appointed to it to serve out the term of the late George Gieber. In 1993 the Western Motel came up for sale in the early 1993’s at a very reasonable price and Perry bought it. The man who earned his living managing someone else’s property now owned his own.
For a while Perry tried to be both but found that he could not serve twomasres. The fact that his bosses did not take kindly to their employee’s extra-curricular activity helped him make his final decision. He quit.
Partly by choice and partly by circumstance found himself no longer a company man. He took to it with a vengeance. While other Wendover, Utah motel owners struggled to survive Perry expanded. He built the Day’s Inn in 1999 and in what might have been the sweetest revenge purchasing the State Line Inn in 2001 a property he once managed for the other people.
The Day’s Inn was the largest private project in Wendover Utah in two decades and was the first step in a face lift of Wendover, Utah that later would include sidewalks curb and gutter a new city/county building and a widening of the city’s main street. Perry also expanded a small auto yard to a full service car dealership this year.
While Perry’s private business challenges were large those faced as a city councilman for Wendover, Utah seemed insurmountable. After eight years under the administration of Brenda Morgan Wendover, Utah found itself on the brink of bankruptcy due to the Wendover Airport Improvement project.
By then the city was $4 million dollars in debt and with no possible way to pay it back. The debacle did help now former Mayor Kent Peterson’s landslide victory over Morgan that November.
However Petersen’s tenure was extremely short lived. After losing two jobs between his November victory and his January swearing in Petersen resigned as may in June of that year. A month later the council turned to Perry and appointed him Mayor in late July.
Perry was one of the architects of the bailout that saved the city. Tooele County bailed the city out of the airport debt but the city had to cede ownership of the facility to the county.
“If I had to do it again I wouldn’t,” Perry said Wednesday.
The deal was done in June so when Perry was sworn in September he took over a city with virtually no cash reserves and bereft of its major asset—the airport.
When he assumed office many in town predicted that Wendover, Utah had six month perhaps a year before it was forced to disincorporate. The reports of the city’s death were exaggerated.
Perry used all his resources to get Wendover, Utah back on track and when he left office eight years later the city was solvent and talk of disincorporation and bankruptcy were things of the distant past.