Sam Cherry to Convert Former Bent Inn Hotel Into Downtown Apartments

Downtown Las Vegas developer Sam Cherry acquired the shuttered Bent Inn hotel property for $3.2 million, planning to spend just over $1 million converting the 33-room site into a residential complex of studio apartments.

The purchase marks another bet on the downtown housing market for Cherry, whose firm, Cherry Development, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The 48-year-old developer recently received a Key to the City from Mayor Shelley Berkley during a gathering at Soho Lofts, a condo tower he developed two decades ago.

The short-lived Bent Inn, located at the northeast corner of Ogden Avenue and 11th Street, opened in the fall of 2023 as Las Vegas’ only gay-owned boutique hotel. Management abruptly closed the property less than a year later due to an ongoing legal dispute with the general contractor. Although the hotel reopened last year, management announced its final closure in the fall of 2025.

“Well, we tried,” management wrote in a social media post at the time, adding that “some things just aren’t meant to be” and that “this marks the end of a cherished but too brief chapter.”

Clark County property records show lenders foreclosed on the site in May. Cherry purchased the property from the lenders in a transaction that closed on Thursday, telling the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his group planned to start cleaning the site on Friday morning.

Cherry plans to open the residential complex in 90 days, utilizing the property’s recent extensive upgrades. The 33 guest rooms will become studio apartments, while 2,400 square feet of retail space will be transformed into a new hospitality concept. The site sits directly adjacent to an 84-unit apartment complex that Cherry developed and opened in 2023, providing connectivity to his Share Downtown-branded complex.

Mayor Berkley praised the developer during the anniversary event, saying he is making Las Vegas “a more livable and wonderful place to live.”