We bargain-hunters and nostalgia-seekers were escorted onto the property in controlled groups, required to listen to a presentation before being unleashed to go exploring. When the property’s liquidation sale was announced, I flew in from Oregon to attend. To those of us who knew what he’d done to the place, this served more as a threat than a beacon of hope: Nazarian locked the Sahara’s doors on May 16th, 2011, taping up a handwritten sign as his final farewell. Exposed electrical wiring, broken lamps, cigarette burns in the carpeting and furniture, golf ball-sized hole in the shower stall, broken bed frame, filthy casino restrooms….well, you get the idea. My final stay in the summer of 2009 was so awful that I vowed it would be my last. In 2007, Sam Nazarian and Stockbridge Real Estate Group purchased the Sahara…and quickly ran it into the ground. That being said, it still had its purpose as a value destination for those on a budget. Once a legendary destination, Sahara had become a place of despair. This was back in 2005, just when the landmark property was about to plummet to its lowest depths. The Sahara Hotel was one of the first casino resorts I stayed at when the Vegas love affair began.

The iconic hotel gets yet another chance after the SLS debacle…

Sahara hotel las vegas liquidation