Derek Stevens suggested that Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley got a little ahead of herself when she announced during her recent State of the City address that the downtown casino operator and CEO was ready to build a second Circa Casino Resort on a parcel he has owned in Symphony Park since 2017.
“I can tell you right now that we’re a couple of years out from even starting the design work for the site,” Stevens said last week during a celebration he hosted in the 60th-floor Legacy Club at Circa in celebration of Las Vegas’ 120th birthday.
“I can also say whatever we build won’t be called Circa,” said Stevens, who doesn’t mind the attention.
For now, the 7-acre site behind Circa’s Garage Mahal is being used as a construction lot for the Cello residential tower in Symphony Park, which is part of the 600 residential units and 400 hotel rooms for the area.
“We want to be a good neighbor, and it helps the other projects,” Stevens said. “We have the last site that is zoned for gaming, but we’re going to take our time to consider our plans.
Circa is partly responsible for downtown’s gaming boom, which has seen record years for casino revenue since the pandemic, topping out at $931.2 million in 2024. Downtown gaming revenue is up almost 3 percent through the first three months of 2025.
Stevens, who also owns the Golden Gate and D Las Vegas along Fremont Street, said he still has ideas in mind for Circa, which opened in 2020 as the first ground-up casino built downtown since 1980.
Last year, he added 106 rooms and suites to Circa on four floors that had been held out to gauge customers’ response to the property’s room options. Circa now has 618 rooms and suites, 20 percent more than when it opened.
