Nugget renovation scheduled around busy seasons at hotel

The challenge involved with the $12 million renovation of 610 guest rooms in the East Tower of John Ascuaga's Nugget is fairly straightforward:

Keep the construction from disrupting the rest of the operation.

It's simple to say, but difficult to plan, says Michonne Ascuaga, chief executive officer of the privately held casino hotel in Sparks.

A key piece, she says, is scheduling around the hotel's busy seasons. Renovation of a floor or two at a time will begin after the summer season and will reach a feverish pace maybe as many as four floors at a time during the traditionally slow period from Thanksgiving until January.

At most, 300 rooms at a time will be out of commission. The property includes 1,600 rooms in two towers.

"Once we start it, we're going to go like crazy," says Ascuaga.

Final details of the construction schedule are being hammered out by PENTA Building Group, the general contractor.

Design of the renovated rooms, work that begins by taking them down to a shell and starting over, was completed by Karen Buttram of MBA Reno.

The year-long planning process dealt with mundane questions how to clean 1,400 coffee pots from each of the hotel's rooms along with big questions such as the amount of renovation that could be recouped at prevailing rates for hotel rooms in the region.

"The devil is in the details," says Ascuaga.

With an eye toward meeting and conventions business, the design is intended to be business-friendly with plasma television and high-speed Internet access in each room.

The East Tower rooms built in 1984 have had modest facelifts since then, but Ascuaga says stiffening competition throughout the region's hotel market dictates the major renovation.

Bank credit through U.S. Bank, John Ascuaga's Nugget's lead bank, is financing the renovation.