Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas-based Station Casinos selling south Reno land

Station Casinos LLC is selling off a major chunk of its south Reno land holdings but is keeping property along the Mount Rose Highway where a long-planned hotel-casino highrise has yet to be built.

The Las Vegas-based company last week disclosed the pending sale of 101 acres of mostly flat land in the southeast quadrant of the Mount Rose Highway-South Virginia Street junction.

The company, in its latest 10-Q quarterly earnings report, briefly mentioned the pending sale to an unidentified buyer.

"In September 2014, the Company entered into an agreement to sell approximately 101 acres of land held for development in Reno, Nevada for approximately $2.0 million and recognized an impairment loss of $11.7 million to write down the carrying amount of the land to its fair value less cost to sell.

"The impairment loss is included in impairment of other assets in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. The Company expects to complete the sale of the land in the fourth quarter of 2014."

Station officials late Monday refused to elaborate on the transaction or identify the buyer.

"I can confirm an agreement to sell a 101-acre property on South Virginia Street," said spokeswoman Lori Nelson.

In the late 1990s, the property was owned by Boyd Gaming Corp. of Las Vegas, which had designs on building a Sam's Town Casino on the rectangular site south of the Geiger Grade and east of Virginia Street.

Boyd sold the land in 2004 to Las Vegas gaming/restaurant entrepreneur Blake Sartini, who in news reports at the time reportedly bought it as a speculative land investment based on rising real estate values and commercial and residential development under way north of the junction.

Estimates, based on county data and real property transfer tax paid, put the transaction at as much as $14.5 million for the undeveloped land through which Steamboat Creek flows.

At the time, the property had a special-use permit attached that was issued to Boyd allowing a casino, but Sartini said he had no immediate plans for development.

A year later, Station acquired the property, which extends south to Towne Drive, the main route into the Steamboat residential area, for $15.1 million in land and water rights, according to a company proxy statement.

But recognizing the growth potential to the west with the advent of The Summit retail complex and later, the I-580 freeway, Station transferred the site's gaming entitlement to a separate 88-acre parcel bought on the south side of the Mount Rose Highway across from The Summit.

There in 2006, Station won Reno City Council approval for a $500 million, 900-room hotel-casino with three 225-foot-high hotel towers, a 165,000-square-foot casino and retail including a Bass Pro Shop outdoors gear store, despite objections from residents of its impact on their view of the mountains.

But in the years since, Station has endured bankruptcy reorganization as well as recession and has yet to move on the Mount Rose Highway project.

In its approval, the city council required building permits for the first phase within three years. Three years later in 2010, the council granted a five-year extension to Nov. 15, 2015, to begin construction and required all building permits by 2020.

Nelson said the company has "no comment" about its plans for the site as well as a seven-acre parcel across Virginia Street from the Reno-Sparks Convention Center where it once envisioned a small boutique gaming enterprise.

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