Wednesday, May 22, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
A new tower with an old facade soon will rise above Las Vegas, adding another touch of international flavor to the Strip.
Bally Entertainment Corp. today received the Clark County Commission's unanimous approval to build a $500 million Parisian-themed hotel-casino. The resort will feature a 540-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower rising out of the casino.
The tower will include a "Jules Verne Restaurant" on the 20th floor and an observation deck offering spectacular views of the Strip, Bally Entertainment Chairman Arthur Goldberg said.
He described the project this morning to the County Commission, which gave land-use and planning approvals. "Paris" is planned to be a 36-story, 3,220-room hotel-casino to be built on a 24-acre site just south of Bally's Las Vegas.
The new resort will include a 200-foot-high people mover, a similarly sized hot-air balloon sign, outdoor dining, three parking garages and other amenities, Goldberg said.
Construction will begin this summer on the project, which will have about 400 more rooms than Bally's. Paris' casino space of 85,000 square feet is also larger than Bally's 62,200 square feet.
Paris will follow a spate of mega-resort openings this year and next. The Stratosphere opened in April, Monte Carlo is set to open in June and New York-New York is expected to open by the end of this year. Bellagio, which will be across the street from Paris, will open in 1997.
Goldberg said most of the financing for the Paris project would be loans issued by a banking consortium. Since taking over as chairman in 1990, he has presided over a marked improvement in Bally's finances by selling some marginally performing divisions and refinancing debt.
He told shareholders at the company's annual meeting Tuesday in Chicago that 1995 "was a banner year with record-breaking accomplishments and the company's return to strong profitability."
"Not only did we achieve single-year growth of 49 percent in operating income to more than $186 million, the market price of Bally common stock more than doubled over the year, increasing market value by nearly $400 million," he said. "Bally ended 1995 as one of the top-performing stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500."
He said 1995 results, which reflected the spinoff of Bally Total Fitness to shareholders as a separately traded company, were "consistent with our plan to focus all our energies on increasing shareholder value."
Since January 1991, Goldberg said, Bally stock has soared from less than $2 a share to recent levels above $24.
Bally Entertainment was recently the subject of merger talks with Hilton Hotels Corp. and ITT Corp., but Goldberg's reported asking price of $30 to $35 a share proved too high for suitors.
Another stumbling block may have been Goldberg's employment agreement with Bally, which calls for him to be paid more than $24 million if a change of control occurs.
Goldberg earns a base salary of $2.2 million a year, with bonuses, stock options and annuity and insurance payments bringing the total higher. In 1995, his compensation totaled about $6.8 million.
At the annual meeting, Goldberg said Bally "will continue to explore opportunities in new growth areas" such as Louisiana and Mississippi, where it opened riverboat and dockside casinos last year.
"But it is the major gaming destinations of Las Vegas and Atlantic City that we have determined hold the most promise," he said. "We believe these markets hold the greatest opportunities for growth in the gaming industry, and we have invested considerably in these properties over the past year."
Bally is nearly doubling the gaming space of its Bally's Park Place in Atlantic City. The renovated, Western-themed casino will "be the first animated casino ever built there," Goldberg said.
Bally Grand in Atlantic City is also building a new tower, meeting rooms and restaurants, after opening an expanded casino last year.
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