Mar. 24--Amble along the walkways of the Fremont Street Experience and you'll see a series of entryways to dated casinos. 

Missing are the freshly built appeal of a Mandalay Bay, the camcorder focus of a faux Eiffel Tower, the skyward reach of a Bellagio water show. 

Downtown casino investment is measured in the tens of millions of dollars -- not the billions that Strip developers like to raise. 

The aging stretch hasn't had a new hotel-casino opening since 1980, with the unveiling of what is now Fitzgeralds. 

Prospects for a new property to revitalize the aging market appear dim, casino industry experts say. 

"I personally don't see us ever being downtown," Station Casinos Chairman Frank Fertitta III has said. 

Among the reasons for his Fremont Street apathy are limited acreage and parking. 

"Two things really hurt downtown," Fertitta says, "locals casinos and Strip megaresorts." 

Other challenges include the Strip and neighborhood casino construction boom of the 1990s and the legalization of some form of gambling in all but two states. 

Another problem: the helter-skelter development of the Fremont Street area in the early 1900s and its control by a Balkanized collection of owners. The market's casinos occupy about 97 acres, or less than the 110-acre setting of the 4-year-old Bellagio. 

"It was parceled out one acre at a time, and we're still saddled with the reality of the checkerboard pattern of small parcels," MGM Mirage Senior Vice President Alan Feldman said. 

He remembers when downtown's Pioneer closed in 1995, and his employer, then-Golden Nugget owner Mirage Resorts, had an option to buy the site. 

"We found that the Pioneer's site occupied five parcels owned by five different entities, and it just became too complicated," he said. 

The tale of the Fremont Street gambling market can be measured by the numbers: 

--Last year downtown's 22 casinos recorded their biggest increase in gambling take since 1996 with a 1.4 percent increase to $683.3 million. 

--That figure has ranged from $616.6 million to $703.1 million annually between 1988 and 2001 during a period of booming growth for Strip casino win. 

--Downtown casinos' share of statewide casino revenue has dropped to 7.2 percent in 2001 from 13.9 percent in 1988. 

--At the same time, yearly Strip casino win has grown to $4.7 billion from $1.9 billion, generating 49.7 percent of the state's annual haul. 

"Downtown is in a holding pattern at best. The key is keeping the best companies involved," said University of Nevada Las Vegas Professor Bill Thompson, who studies the casino industry. 

Before the 1979 opening of Sam's Town along the Boulder Highway and the rapidly growing collection of locals casinos operated by Station Casinos and Coast Resorts, most locals gambled downtown, Thompson said. 

But as Las Vegas' population soared, residents moved from the urban core, and local casino operators targeted the new neighborhoods with nearby hotel-casinos that offer easy access, plentiful parking and all of the gambling options available downtown. 

"The general rule of thumb is that three to five miles is about as far as people want to go," Station Casinos Chief Operating Officer Steve Cavallaro said. "The local market is all about convenience." 

Downtown's dominant players are MGM Mirage's Golden Nugget and Boyd Gaming Corp.'s trio of Main Street Station, the Fremont and the California Hotel. 

The Golden Nugget focuses on a more high-end customer demographic, while Boyd draws more than three quarters of its downtown business from charter flights between Las Vegas and Hawaii. 

"It's two different markets," Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown casino industry analyst Andrew Zarnett said. "There's the Golden Nugget, and the Boyd (Gaming Corp.) properties, and then there's everyone else." 

In that grouping of lesser lights are: 

--The bankrupt Fitzgeralds hotel-casino, recently acquired along with two non-Nevada Fitzgeralds properties by Detroit businessman Don Barden. 

--The once-bankrupt Four Queens, actively marketed to buyers for several years, announced recently that it would be sold for $22 million to SummerGate Inc., a business owned by a Las Vegas slot bar owner. 

--The Lady Luck, bought in September 2000 by Mississippi-based Isle of Capri Casinos for $14.5 million, is again being marketed for sale, Isle said in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing. 

--The 50-year-old Binion's Horseshoe is in the midst of a legal battle with the Fremont Street Experience about $2 million in fees the hotel-casino owes the downtown pedestrian mall. 

The unveiling of the $70 million Fremont Street Experience canopy in 1995, designed to give the casinos a jointly controlled, megaresortlike attraction, has been a plus for downtown operators, Boyd spokesman Rob Stillwell said. 

"The canopy and the (Fremont Street) entertainment are key draws," Stillwell said. 

The light show provided 180 nights of live entertainment last year, Fremont Street Experience President Mark Paris said, but he said that downtown's struggling properties need new investment. 

"These properties need to have some capital invested, some money spent on marketing," Paris said. 

More than $300 million has been spent renovating downtown casinos over the past five years, he noted. 

"The Golden Nugget refurbished every hotel room in the North tower, and other properties have seen returns on their capital investments as well," Paris added. "You have to remember that downtown performance has been flat despite new competition from the megaresorts. 

"People have an attitude that you have to blow everything up and build again, but there is a lot of character downtown. Reinvestment and refurbishing can work." 

But Zarnett and Thompson predicted that no new downtown hotel-casinos will be built in the foreseeable future, citing the healthier returns that come with investments in other markets. 

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(c) 2002, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MGG,