Boyd’s first new valley project in 20 years targets growing Henderson community

Boyd Gaming’s newly announced casino project in Henderson could become its first ground-up casino in about 20 years — and another mark of interest in the area from gaming operators.

Executives announced the new project, Cadence Crossing, during its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday. CEO Keith Smith said the new 10,000-square-foot casino with 450 slot machines is expected to break ground later this year and open by early 2026.

Officials said further details about the design and other amenities, as well as the construction cost, were not yet available. This project and other renovations at an out-of-state property are expected to be covered in a $100 million capital expenditure allocation on the company’s balance sheet.

Boyd spokesman David Strow said the whole building will be about 50,000 square feet, including the food and beverage outlets, live entertainment space and back-of-house areas. The casino will be built on the same site as Joker’s Wild, which will close upon completion of Cadence Crossing.

The company points to the master-planned community Cadence’s growth rate as the reason for the plans.

“It’s a reflection of Cadence and the growth we’re seeing there,” Strow said. “There’s 5,000 homes there. Now it’s one of the fastest-growing master-planned communities, not only in Las Vegas but the entire country. So given the amount of growth that we’ve seen there, the amount of growth that we anticipate coming up at Cadence, we felt that this was a good time to move forward.”

The Las Vegas-based regional gaming operator has been less likely to build from the ground up compared to others in the locals market. The company last had ground-up development in the 2000s: it purchased the under-construction South Coast casino in 2005, which sold and rebranded as the South Point in 2006. The following year, it began developing Echelon at the site of the Stardust. That project later was sold to Genting Group in 2013 and became Resorts World. (The last newly built casino that it still runs is Sam’s Town, which opened in 1979.)

Other gaming operators have also identified the southeast Las Vegas Valley for future growth: Penn Entertainment is building a second hotel tower at the M Resort in Henderson and Red Rock Resorts, parent company of the Station Casinos brand, is preparing entitlements for a resort development in the Inspirada master-planned community.

Still, those projects may be a larger investment. Red Rock has said the Inspirada project could be a similar or slightly smaller project to the $780 million Durango, which opened in December. M Resort’s tower expansion is slated to cost about $206 million.

Boyd said Cadence Crossing could get more investment in the future. A second phase of development could add a minimum 114-room hotel and more casino space, though no timeline has been set.

Wall Street analysts kept mum about the news after the call. In a note from Macquarie Equity Research’s Chad Beynon, the analyst said the firm is expecting muted growth for the company overall, though that could change as the development pipeline nears fruition.

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.