Owners Secretly Selling Las Vegas Cannabis Hotel

The owners of Las Vegas’ first “cannabis-forward” hotel want to puff, puff, pass it to someone else.

Elevations Hotel and Resorts has listed the Lexi for an undisclosed price via the commercial realtor Paramount Lodging Advisors.

Failures are never announced in corporate press releases. Fortunately, Casino.org’s own Vital Vegas blog got word of the listing and broke the story Friday.

Chronic-ology

The Lexi opened, with 64 rooms and a gaming floor, in September 1978 as the Las Vegas Inn and Casino. Six years later, the hotel filed for its first bankruptcy. It became a nongaming Ramada in 1991, and later, a Travelodge.

In 2001, the hotel was purchased by Doug DaSilva, former owner of the Thunderbird Hotel, who  spent $4 million to remake it into a boutique property called the Artisan.

Featuring reproductions of famous art paintings in every room, the Artisan received mostly positive reviews and a loyal clientele. Nevertheless, DaSilva became the the hotel’s second owner to file for bankruptcy in December 2008.

A year later, the mortgage-holder foreclosed, and the Siegel Group — which butters its bread with ultra low-budget extended-stay residences — closed its acquisition in January 2010.

In 2022, Siegel sold the property to Phoenix-based Pro Hospitality Group, which became Elevations, for $11.9 million. Following a $3-$4 million renovation, the Artisan reopened as the Lexi on June 2, 2023.

Doobie-ous Distinction

The Lexi loudly and proudly announced itself as the first cannabis-friendly hotel in Las Vegas, where recreational cannabis was legalized in 2017. Consumption was restricted to its fourth floor, where filtration systems attempted, with reportedly mixed results, to block second-hand smoke from escaping.

“The Lexi allows the Elevations Hotels and Resorts brand to truly showcase our commitment to creating a new type of hotel concept that is defined not only by our acceptance and normalization of cannabis in the hospitality space, but also by our dedication to reclaim storied properties and transform them for the modern-day travelers,” said Alex Rizk, Elevations president and CEO, in a statement at the time.

The Lexi also announced plans to add a cannabis lounge, which would have required a state permit.

That never happened and, at this point, probably never will.