Harmon design finally accepted

After months of sometimes testy negotiations, hotel-casino executives have finally agreed in concept to a design for the Harmon Avenue-Las Vegas Boulevard intersection.

On Tuesday, public works officials -- who have been meeting monthly with representatives of hotel-casinos affected by the project -- will present the new design to the Clark County Commission.

"The property owners have come to a tentative agreement, and they're just working out the details," said Bobby Shelton, spokesman for the Public Works Department.

Harmon Avenue likely will stretch diagonally across the Strip and continue west over Interstate 15. The Harmon-Las Vegas Boulevard intersection will be a surface road as opposed to earlier plans that called for S-shaped tunnels beneath the Strip.

The commission will be asked Tuesday to approve right-of-way acquisitions that will cost between $10 million and $30 million.

Shelton said the Strip property most affected by the new intersection will be Focus 2000, which will lose a chunk of land on the southwest corner. Mirage Resorts Inc. also will be stripped of about 14 acres on the northeast corner.

In August, Mirage representatives agreed to sell the 14 acres worth $114 million to the county for $8 million on the condition that Harmon Avenue be curved at the Strip to preserve the integrity of their property, the future site of a new resort.

The agreement was later nullified by a District Court judge who determined that open-meeting laws were violated during negotiations between the Mirage and the county.

Shelton said he is confident the Mirage is still willing to extend the same offer.

"We tend to believe any verbal understanding we had would still be reachable," Shelton said.

Various strategies to extend Harmon Avenue across the Strip were introduced after Aladdin Gaming LLC representatives strongly protested the county's plans to build tunnels.

On the east side of the Strip, Harmon Avenue would have emerged from the tunnels right before the entrance to Aladdin's $1.3 billion hotel-casino, which is under construction. Aladdin officials said it would be too difficult for motorists to negotiate over two lanes of traffic to the hotel's driveway.

The Harmon extension is needed to accommodate east-west commuters, but in August county commissioners also warned public works officials to keep businesses in mind. And after months of meetings, the diagonal design was finally agreed upon.

Shelton said the county has not yet determined how much the project will cost. In earlier meetings, however, the county said the more traditional intersection would cost about $5 million while tunnels could cost up to $45 million.

"We have to get commissioners to agree to the project, then we can get property value assessed and make a determination on the cost of the project," Shelton said.

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