Yet Stevens became fascinated early on by the business of Vegas and saw revival and profit potential in the long-moribund downtown cluster of casinos. Stevens, 53, is a Grosse Pointe native who, with his undergraduate degree at University of Michigan and his MBA from Wayne State, seemed likely to settle into a cushy life as CEO of Cold Heading Co., his family’s Warren-based nuts and bolt supplier to the auto industry. In October, Stevens joined those ranks by opening the $1 billion Circa Resort & Casino, the first major resort built from the ground up to open in more than a decade, with a six-tiered swimming complex and a world’s-biggest sportsbook so grand you’ll wonder why nobody thought of it before.
Derek Stevens’ new Circa Resort & Casino included several nods to his Michigan roots.įor those of us who follow such things, Derek Stevens’ rise to prominence in Las Vegas is more proof that there’s still room in the world’s most famous gambling mecca for new figures to come out of nowhere and take their place in a canon that stretches from Bugsy Siegel and Jackie Gaughan to Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson.
