With ability to build high, with ability to build wide; with permission to build condominiums, with permission to build a resort; with opportunities to include gaming, with opportunities to include adult entertainment—and with so few restrictions in general, the partners who earlier this month purchased 63 acres of undeveloped land right off the Strip, Weststate Holdings, are bound in what they can add to Las Vegas by only the limit of their creative capacity.
For they now own a prime piece of land, at the Strip's entrance, across from Mandalay Bay, bordering the west side of the I-15, in the clear and ineluctable view of cars flowing into the heart of the city. And it is a large chunk of dirt, too, a full 63 acres between Russell Road and Hacienda Avenue, now sitting vacant and vibrant with potential, just like a painter's white canvas.
In truth, it is fertile ground for raising businesses of many sorts, free from obstruction and subject only to the fundamental laws of Las Vegas economics. That is: The empty 63 acres at the south end of the Strip are a developer's dream, and the possibilities embedded there stretch out as far as one's imagination.
But what will the owners do with it? Weststate is composed of four parties—Tristar Capital, based out of New York; RFR Holding, a German investment firm; Starwood Hotels and Resorts, out of New York and responsible for the Sheraton, Westin and W hotels; and the Edge Group, a Las Vegas company that is developing a W hotel on Harmon Avenue and Koval Lane right now—and so any decision will be a collective effort, which of course congests the creative process.
Trevor Pearlman, co-chairman of the Edge Group, says that the partners have all worked together before, that they are all familiar with the Las Vegas market, and that they share one common goal—maximal profit—and so he doesn't foresee any irreconcilable conflicts. They are all opportunistic companies, he says, and like any business in America they are focused on extracting the greatest value possible from the land, which they bought at a miraculous price: $201.7 million. Or a little more than $3 million per acre. Or about $17 million less per acre than land on South Las Vegas Boulevard goes for these days.
Yet, even they know money isn't everything in this case; for on account of the plot's salient position, Weststate shoulders a mountainous responsibility. Not only will their eventual creation be the first image of the Strip visitors driving from the south ingest, but it will also be the last they see before leaving. Pearlman says the partners in all certainty feel this pressure and therefore they want to create something that is not just economically fruitful but also special and extraordinary—something so enduring and iconic that it not only keeps people coming back but also persists in their minds long after they've gone home.
"We're driven by both economics and vision," he says. "And we want to blend the two variables together, just as each of the best resorts in Las Vegas has done over the past 20 years."
And so he and his partners are doing the prudent thing, taking it slow, observing trends and considering the market, moving without haste and with the assurance that the land is theirs, that it won't be going anywhere, and that no masterpiece was ever rushed.
They have thus far offered only vague hints. (Surely a Starwood hotel, perhaps even two, will go up, they've said, and because the land sits in one of the county's manufacturing districts, which permits mixed operations, few opportunities are likely to be squandered.) But as of now there have been no committments, nor will there be for at least a year.
And so one is left to speculate.
For instance, what would an unpredictable character like Bob Stupak, the man once considered "Mr. Las Vegas," do if he had 63 acres, flanked by warehouses and a freeway, with nothing to stand in front of it? Or a guy like Steve Wynn, whom Pearlman calls a pioneer in that business of blending vision and economics, and further, of making the two variables lend themselves to each another's benefit. What would he do with a 10 million-square-foot capacity, available to encompass any number of developmental combinations? Consider the following:
• 1974: Bob Stupak's World Famous Historic Gambling Museum, a parcel of the absurd.
• 1979: Bob Stupak's Vegas World sets new standard for gaudiness, money-making.
• 1989: Steve Wynn opens Mirage, ignites the theme of spectacle in Las Vegas.
• 1995: Bob Stupak builds Stratosphere, 1,049 feet high, with a roller coaster on top.
• 1998: Steve Wynn's Bellagio introduces luxury and elegance to Strip.
• 2005: Steve Wynn's namesake, an accomplishment on an international scale.
On the other hand, think of some of the other great ideas for casinos that have been considered: Stupak famously tried to build the Titanic casino north of the Stratosphere—yes, a building on the Strip designed to look like the mammoth ship. It didn't pass muster with locals or city planners.
Others that have been pitched include an enormous haunted mansion (architectural drawings conveniently depict a sky marked with daunting clouds and lightning) and a "winter wonderland" decked out with a faux ski mountain.
Further, there has long been talk of building a casino that was a miniature Las Vegas—a mini-Strip within the walls of the resort.
Which is to say, the potential is vast.
What would a visitor want done? Located in a Valley shrinking every year due to inordinate sprawl, and in a postcard position that offers a view of not only the Strip but also the entire Valley, one could build a resort or condominium complex as high as the Federal Aviation Administration permits, which is at least the same 560 feet as Mandalay Bay across the way.
What would a local do? Up the sophistication of Las Vegas Boulevard? The bawdiness? The luridness? Gear gaming toward locals, too—an anomaly on the Strip but proven lucrative by the Station and Coast casinos?
As with anything novel, the owners of the land have an advantage over their predecessors from the start, for they are in a position to not only incorporate the successes but also avoid the shortcomings of those exact predecessors, and therefore improve upon everything Las Vegas has thus far seen, perhaps even adding new definition to our pubescent city.
And according to Clark County's Development Code (Title 30), the possibilities in that zone between Russell and Hacienda, along the west side of the I-15, are abundant: racetracks, drive-in movie theaters, recording studios and cemeteries; a self-contained community complete with grocers, convenience stores, auto-repair shops, health clubs, schools and libraries; escort bureaus, outcall entertainment services, bathhouses and places of worship; arcades, art galleries, carnivals, malls, farmers' markets, psychic arts joints and sports fields; and all accessible by monorail, if so desired.
Let's for a moment say that you, in fact, paid $201.7 million for that piece of undeveloped land, sitting like a poet's blank page at the forefront of the incomparable Strip; and so now it is you with the limitless options to create something innovative and profitable.
Just what would you do?