Jackson said to be looking at LV projects

Detroit businessman Don Barden and partner Michael Jackson have visited Las Vegas and are considering a possible resort project here.

A statement issued Tuesday announcing the pair's plan for a Detroit entertainment complex said Barden and Jackson "have traveled to Las Vegas, St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, Namibia and South Africa on fact finding missions identifying potential projects for investment."

"Opportunities have been presented to us in South Korea, Vietnam, South Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, Las Vegas, China," Barden told the Detroit Free Press last week.

Patrice Green, a Barden spokeswoman, said no decisions have been made about a potential project here. She declined to characterize the type of project being discussed, where it would be located, or whether Jackson and Barden would team with an established resort company.

The duo plans to spend Thursday and Friday in New York, "to meet with various (chief executive officers) of major financial organizations who are interested in financing their world-wide endeavor," according to Tuesday's statement.

The Jackson family once planned a casino project near the Gold Coast hotel-casino in Las Vegas, but that project fell apart years ago. And an ambitious plan announced in 1990 by Jackson and Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn similarly fizzled.

"They never came out," said Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman of the 1990 proposal to build a replica of Diamond Head, a mountain in Honolulu, Hawaii. "They just never moved forward. In the end, we just decided to use that space for some other things."

If the duo decide to build a gaming resort in Las Vegas, they would have to be licensed and it is likely the Nevada Gaming Control Board would take a hard look at the well-publicized allegations of sexual misconduct against Jackson in the early 1990s.

Michigan gaming regulators, too, could examine the allegations against Jackson once that state's gambling licensing system is established.

Besides a Jackson-Barden proposal for a Detroit casino, three casinos are being developed in Detroit thanks to voter approval of gambling there. On Aug. 4, Detroit voters will be asked to decide whether to support the existing three-casino plan or the new Jackson-Barden proposal.

archive