Construction on the $5 billion Plaza casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip is being delayed until 2009, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.

The project was set to begin construction by the end of 2008 but Michelle Tsang, a spokeswoman for Elad IDB Las Vegas, told the Wall Street Journal that the owners plan to move forward with the project sometime next year. She said, “They’re doing what everyone else is doing.”

Tsang is referring to the recent announcement by Boyd Gaming that they are postponing the construction of the $4.8 billion Echelon while they seek additional financing.

The Plaza partners has also deferred payment of a $625 million loan used to buy the property for the project.

The Plaza project is the result of a partnership between the Elad Group, which owns the New York Plaza, and  IDB Group of Israel.

Credits: Las Vegas Now

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M Resort developer Anthony Marnell III is trying to do things differently.

While Strip developers continue to go over budget with their megaresorts, Marnell used millions of dollars he will save by opening his resort a few months early to add upgrades to the property, including a high-tech wine cellar and a rooftop restaurant with 180-degree views of the Las Vegas Valley.

While Strip casinos install flashy nightclubs with celebrity DJs, Marnell is ditching the concept altogether, opting instead for another restaurant.

While Strip casinos sign up A-list investors for celebrity chef restaurants, M Resort will own all of its restaurants and bring the experience to the masses with a production studio that will tape cooking shows on site.

While Strip casinos charge top dollar for drinks, M Resort will offer a self-service station where customers can get their own sodas and coffee.

“With the economy in Las Vegas, you have to be more creative in what you deliver,” Marnell said during a tour of the construction site on Friday. “We’re trying to give people more options for their money.”

The M Resort, at the southwest corner of St. Rose Parkway and Las Vegas Boulevard, more than 10 miles south of Mandalay Bay, will be the southernmost casino in the Las Vegas Valley. The 400-room property, which is expected to get most of its customers from nearby neighborhoods, including Southern Highlands, Seven Hills and Anthem, will face stiff competition from nearby locals casinos as well as the Strip.

Unlike newer locals casinos, which get about half of their business from out-of-town visitors, M Resort will get 80 percent of its revenue from locals, said Marnell, who began work on the $700 million project five years ago.

That’s partly why Marnell, who helped open one of the valley’s first major night clubs at the Rio, wants to avoid the night club crowd. Booming, boisterous clubs can be more trouble than they’re worth for management, while turning off locals trying to enjoy a more relaxed night out, he said.

Locals favorites such as a buffet, poker room, deli and a sports book with reclining chairs and about 100 beers on tap, will be near a 2,000-car garage for easy access.

Little of what Marnell calls the resort’s “modern Italian design” is yet visible, though the cresent-shaped glass shell hotel tower was topped off Friday and construction of the giant, zinc-encrusted porte cochere is under way on the side farthest from the Strip.

Many venues at the M Resort will face the Strip, with floor-to-ceiling views overlooking a pool and outdoor amphitheater, which will host concerts that restaurantgoers can see and hear.

There’s something else about this property that’s different from the big resorts farther north on Las Vegas Boulevard.

Marnell’s contractor is Marnell Corrao Associates, the company founded by his father, Tony Marnell II, who built the Rio as well as resorts for Steve Wynn. Working closely with his father has streamlined planning, which can be time consuming at major companies where decisions are made by committee, Marnell said.

“It’s a pretty special deal,” he said. “Not too many people know what their parents really do for a living.”

The resort will open in March, ahead of the earlier projected opening date of May 1. That has saved the company interest payments and allowed the resort to stay under budget, Marnell said. The resort has financing through the Bank of Scotland and is part owned by MGM Mirage.

The site, which is more than 90 acres, can accommodate 2,500 rooms in future phases, Marnell said. A movie theater will open by the end of 2009 and a 1-million-square-foot mall will open in late 2010 or early 2011.

Eye candy is important but comfort and service are paramount, Marnell said.

“There aren’t a whole lot of unique ideas left in Las Vegas — it’s about how you deliver them,” he said.

Credits: Las Vegas Sun

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Deutsche Bank, senior lender to the partially built Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, continues to seek partners to operate the 3,000-room resort as it carries out foreclosure proceedings, a spokesman said on Thursday.

“We are looking for partners,” said bank spokeswoman Ted Meyer.

Deutsche Bank began the foreclosure process in January after developer 3700 Associates LLC, led by Chief Executive Ian Bruce Eichner, defaulted on a $760 million construction loan for the condominium-hotel project.

General contractor Perini Building Co, a unit of Perini Corp, reached an agreement at that time under which the bank has continued to fund construction work.

Meyer said the $3.5 billion resort is still scheduled to open late next year and the foreclosure process is expected to become final later this month.

Potential operators include Global Hyatt Corp, which has invested in the project and still lists the resort on its Web site as “Grand Hyatt Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino.”

Officials at Hyatt did not respond to requests for an update on the company’s role.

Hotel operators Hilton Corp and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, along with various commercial real estate developers, have also reportedly talked with Deutsche Bank about partnering opportunities.

The Cosmopolitan is located on the western side of the Las Vegas Strip between CityCenter, the $9.1 billion mixed-use development being built by MGM Mirage and MGM’s Bellagio resort.

A spokeswoman for the MGM declined to comment on whether the casino operator is exploring any participation with the project, citing company policy.

A spokesman for Marathon Asset Management, another of the project’s original lenders, said there has been no change in the status of the Cosmopolitan.

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The popular image of this desert gambling mecca is that of indulgence and indiscriminate consumption. Words that rarely come to mind: Conservation. Sustainability. Green.

Yet it’s the famous Las Vegas Strip that’s modeling eco-friendly practices.

In Nevada, plans are underway to build more than 100 million square feet of new construction to the standards of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

More than half of that involves casino-resort projects on and around the Las Vegas Strip, not including the 8.3 million square feet of the 7-month-old, $1.9 billion Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, which, in May, was designated the nation’s largest LEED-certified building.

The scale of the Vegas projects, as well as the promise of 40 million tourists a year using and learning from these buildings, has excited Brendan Owens, the council’s vice president for LEED certification.

“There’s only so many places where projects like these can happen,” he says. “Las Vegas can serve as a bellwether for mainstream companies and organizations that are not necessarily focused on the environment to say, ‘You know what? These guys are doing it, so can we.’ ”

The projects gunning for LEED certifications include the $2.9 billion Fontainebleau Resort, the $1.9 billion tower addition to Caesars Palace, the $4.8 billion Echelon resort and the $9.2 billion, six-high-rise CityCenter complex. Some LEED-inspired innovations:

• Boyd Gaming’s Echelon, due to open in 2010, recycles building waste by using materials left over from the Stardust resort that was imploded to make way for it, such as part of the concrete used in its fountains.

• For CityCenter, opening next year, MGM Mirage built its own energy generator to provide a fifth of its own power and to use the excess heat generated to warm the water to be used for the 7,400 hotel rooms and condo units as well as the dozens of shops, restaurants and other amenities planned.

• Solar panels heat both the Palazzo’s pools and, in the summer, the water in guest rooms.

• Fontainebleau, opening next year, plans the “first paperless hotel room” by providing an iMac computer in each suite loaded with information normally found in in-room brochures.

Each of these projects is helped along by USGBC standards that allow the developers to separate their casinos from the rest of the resorts when going for LEED status, a controversial distinction that Owens defends. Including the casinos would almost certainly sink the attainment of LEED status because the USGBC frowns on smoking in public places, and no Las Vegas casino is smoke-free.

“The way I always look at the Palazzo, for example, is that the casino is 250,000 square feet and the rest of the project is 8 million square feet, so we needed to be able to recognize the achievement on the bulk of the project,” Owens says.

About three miles from the Strip, the state’s first LEED-certified Gold project is the $107 million Molasky Corporate Center, which, among other innovations, uses recycled denim for insulation. And LEED has given a new green-neighborhood designation, one of a handful awarded nationally, to the $6 billion, 61-acre Union Park development across from the Molasky center, which will include a $360 million performing-arts center, three hotels, a Frank Gehry-designed brain research center, several office buildings and thousands of residential units.

Both MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment, with a combined 28 casino properties in Nevada, have plans to re-evaluate older properties and have taken steps such as switching to compact fluorescent lighting and installing sensors to turn off air-conditioning units when people aren’t in their rooms.

Altruism isn’t the only motivation. Nevada law provides property tax rebates of 25% to 35% to builders whose projects are LEED-certified.

And many tourists are skeptical that these eco-friendly acts can alter the city’s image.

“You think Vegas, you just think of this huge international symbol of waste,” says Mark Vitter of Manchester, England. “I love Las Vegas, but its very existence is almost a crime against nature. No amount of conservation can replace what ought not be used in the first place.”

Environmental groups wish the resorts would do more to involve the millions of Vegas tourists in the act. The Sierra Club’s Nevada director, Lydia Ball, says recycle bins are scarce at the resorts and non-existent on outdoor sidewalks along the Strip.

MGM Mirage spokesman Gordon Absher says there’s a reason for that: It’s unsightly.

“Keep in mind that we are in the resort-hotel business, and the people come to stay with us to have a four-diamond experience,” Absher says. “As practical as they are, sometimes the big blue bin just doesn’t fit in with the décor. We do recycle, but we don’t need to ask our guests to do the work for us.”

Credit: USAToday.com

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