Yates-Silverman Helps Racetracks Find New Life as Racinos
June 25, 2003
LAS VEGAS – Yates-Silverman, Inc. rose to prominence designing interiors in signature hotels on the Las Vegas strip, but recently the contract hospitality design firm was tapped for work on a horse racing track in New York.
Specifically, the firm is designing the interior of a new area, devoted to gaming, in the grandstand. It's a relatively new breed of entertainment that mixes horse racing and gambling machines, called the racino, and Yates-Silverman, Inc. president Charlie Silverman sees it as the 42-year-old firm's strongest growth opportunity.
In 1989, Yates-Silverman helped develop the first racino in America, designing the gaming area at Prairie Meadows raceway, in Iowa.
"It was a very successful enterprise," said Silverman, describing Prairie Meadows. "It took a failing track and turned it into a thriving business."
Today more horse tracks are installing slot machines and video gambling in the hope of luring a new generation of customers. (After state governments take a cut, the track augments purses for the races with money from the slots.) In New York State alone more than five tracks may add as many as 6,000 machines each this year. Currently six U.S. states license race tracks to install gambling machines on the premises.
The growing popularity of racinos gives Yates-Silverman more opportunities in what is already its strongest sector — gaming — where the firm finds 95 percent of its work. Yates-Silverman has either refurbished or designed for the first time upward of 250 gaming sites in the last 20 years. It designed Thunder Valley casino, owned jointly by Station Casinos and United Auburn Indian Community, which opened in Auburn, Calif., on June 9. (Silverman said the firm has worked on gaming projects with 10 other Native American tribes.) The firm's casino portfolio includes Colorado Belle and Foxwoods. It has also gotten into riverboat gaming, a fast growing market with annual revenues reportedly as high as $4 billion.
Yates-Silverman has also put itself on the world map, completing casino, hotel and even stadium projects in Lima, Peru; Belize; Hong Kong and Prague. Silverman said it was too early to give details, but acknowledged that the firm is under contract with WATG to work on a project in Macao, a Chinese city likened to Las Vegas.
Despite its global reach, the firm operates from one location. Yates-Silverman, Inc. is on a busy Las Vegas street that runs parallel to the strip. Industrial Road, a once-unpaved avenue, was originally cleared in the '50s to give construction teams easy access to their projects on the strip. Yates-Silverman moved from Los Angeles and set up shop here in 1987. Today, Industrial Road is lined with businesses and is about to be widened to four lanes. The view of the strip from Yates-Silverman's office is like looking into the firm's own trophy case. The Eiffel Tower marks the hotel Paris, the scaled Coney Island roller coaster slopes against the desert sky in front of New York-New York. Caesar's and the Bellagio cut famous figures in the Las Vegas skyline. Elsewhere in Sin City stand Caesar's Palace, Harrah's, Circus Circus, Excalibur and the famous Luxor pyramid, pointing to the ether. Yates-Silverman, Inc. acted as lead designer for these projects and several others in Las Vegas and around the country. The firm's work has won awards and been featured in documentaries. Silverman probably wouldn't introduce himself this way to a stranger, but people in the industry refer to him as the Dean of Las Vegas Hotel Design for a reason.
Although his original partner, Bill Yates, passed on about 25 years ago, the firm's name is unchanged. "He was a good man and people knew the (Yates) name, so I didn't see any reason to change the name of the firm," Silverman said.
Today, under the direction of Silverman's daughter, vice president Margot Silverman, the 34-member firm continues the work that brought it a high profile. Yates-Silverman spearheaded design renovations of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and new work on Atlantic City's Tropicana Hotel last year. Although he described his work to F&FI in mostly broad terms, Silverman went into detail when he guessed the firm specified 50,000 yards of textiles for bedspreads in 2,000 MGM guest rooms. Yates-Silverman also refurbed the hotel corridors and created Hollywood schemes for the guest rooms: "feminine" Gene Harlot rooms with graceful curves and tone-on-tone beige; and "masculine" Clark Gable rooms decked with cherry wood and strong lines). In 1999, it worked as the interior designer of record in the conversion of a former IRS building into the MGM Detroit. In late May, the architectural firm Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo said it included Yates-Silverman on a short list of candidates to work on refurbishing the 2,000-room Tropicana in Las Vegas. For Yates-Silverman, it'll be another larger-than-life trophy in a Las Vegas-shaped case.
Specifically, the firm is designing the interior of a new area, devoted to gaming, in the grandstand. It's a relatively new breed of entertainment that mixes horse racing and gambling machines, called the racino, and Yates-Silverman, Inc. president Charlie Silverman sees it as the 42-year-old firm's strongest growth opportunity.
In 1989, Yates-Silverman helped develop the first racino in America, designing the gaming area at Prairie Meadows raceway, in Iowa.
"It was a very successful enterprise," said Silverman, describing Prairie Meadows. "It took a failing track and turned it into a thriving business."
Today more horse tracks are installing slot machines and video gambling in the hope of luring a new generation of customers. (After state governments take a cut, the track augments purses for the races with money from the slots.) In New York State alone more than five tracks may add as many as 6,000 machines each this year. Currently six U.S. states license race tracks to install gambling machines on the premises.
The growing popularity of racinos gives Yates-Silverman more opportunities in what is already its strongest sector — gaming — where the firm finds 95 percent of its work. Yates-Silverman has either refurbished or designed for the first time upward of 250 gaming sites in the last 20 years. It designed Thunder Valley casino, owned jointly by Station Casinos and United Auburn Indian Community, which opened in Auburn, Calif., on June 9. (Silverman said the firm has worked on gaming projects with 10 other Native American tribes.) The firm's casino portfolio includes Colorado Belle and Foxwoods. It has also gotten into riverboat gaming, a fast growing market with annual revenues reportedly as high as $4 billion.
Yates-Silverman has also put itself on the world map, completing casino, hotel and even stadium projects in Lima, Peru; Belize; Hong Kong and Prague. Silverman said it was too early to give details, but acknowledged that the firm is under contract with WATG to work on a project in Macao, a Chinese city likened to Las Vegas.
Despite its global reach, the firm operates from one location. Yates-Silverman, Inc. is on a busy Las Vegas street that runs parallel to the strip. Industrial Road, a once-unpaved avenue, was originally cleared in the '50s to give construction teams easy access to their projects on the strip. Yates-Silverman moved from Los Angeles and set up shop here in 1987. Today, Industrial Road is lined with businesses and is about to be widened to four lanes. The view of the strip from Yates-Silverman's office is like looking into the firm's own trophy case. The Eiffel Tower marks the hotel Paris, the scaled Coney Island roller coaster slopes against the desert sky in front of New York-New York. Caesar's and the Bellagio cut famous figures in the Las Vegas skyline. Elsewhere in Sin City stand Caesar's Palace, Harrah's, Circus Circus, Excalibur and the famous Luxor pyramid, pointing to the ether. Yates-Silverman, Inc. acted as lead designer for these projects and several others in Las Vegas and around the country. The firm's work has won awards and been featured in documentaries. Silverman probably wouldn't introduce himself this way to a stranger, but people in the industry refer to him as the Dean of Las Vegas Hotel Design for a reason.
Although his original partner, Bill Yates, passed on about 25 years ago, the firm's name is unchanged. "He was a good man and people knew the (Yates) name, so I didn't see any reason to change the name of the firm," Silverman said.
Today, under the direction of Silverman's daughter, vice president Margot Silverman, the 34-member firm continues the work that brought it a high profile. Yates-Silverman spearheaded design renovations of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and new work on Atlantic City's Tropicana Hotel last year. Although he described his work to F&FI in mostly broad terms, Silverman went into detail when he guessed the firm specified 50,000 yards of textiles for bedspreads in 2,000 MGM guest rooms. Yates-Silverman also refurbed the hotel corridors and created Hollywood schemes for the guest rooms: "feminine" Gene Harlot rooms with graceful curves and tone-on-tone beige; and "masculine" Clark Gable rooms decked with cherry wood and strong lines). In 1999, it worked as the interior designer of record in the conversion of a former IRS building into the MGM Detroit. In late May, the architectural firm Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo said it included Yates-Silverman on a short list of candidates to work on refurbishing the 2,000-room Tropicana in Las Vegas. For Yates-Silverman, it'll be another larger-than-life trophy in a Las Vegas-shaped case.
