Derek Stevens (born September 17, 1967) is an American businessman who owns several hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas.
Stevens, along with his brother Greg, purchased the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino in 2008, followed in 2011 by Fitzgeralds, which they renamed as The D Las Vegas.
Since the 1990s, he has also served as the CEO of Cold Heading Company, a manufacturer of auto parts that is based in his home state of Michigan.
[1] His father John Stevens was an architect,[2] and his mother, Betty,[3] was a high school teacher who had studied math and physics.
[1] His grandfather, Rene DeSeranno,[4] started Cold Heading Company, an auto-parts manufacturer, in Warren, Michigan in 1952.
[5][8] Four years later, he earned a Master of Business Administration degree in finance, from Wayne State University in Detroit.
[1][9] He initially studied to be an engineer, but decided he wanted to be in business instead, after spending time in Ann Arbor.
The two have partnered on several projects,[2][1] which helped revitalize the Fremont Street area of downtown Las Vegas.
[3][30] In 2013, he purchased the former Clark County Courthouse nearby,[31][32] and demolished it to build the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, which opened a year later.
[36][37] In 2015, the Stevens brothers purchased the Las Vegas Club in downtown and eventually announced plans to build a new resort in its place.
[1][2][3][43][44][45] In 2020, he gave away 1,700 free airplane tickets to Las Vegas to help the city's economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
[2] He has no interest in entering the Detroit casino market, stating that the customer demographic is too different compared to Las Vegas.