Expert sees Wynn building a Broadway-themed resort

Las Vegas real estate guru Richard Lee thinks he knows Mirage Resort Inc.'s next move on the Strip.

In a presentation to the local chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties last week, Lee said he expects Mirage to develop a Broadway-themed resort property on land south of Bellagio with a theater capable of staging a Broadway production, along with a large events arena.

Lee's speech was one of two real estate presentations last week in which the state of the gaming industry was a major focus. Michael Rumbolz, president and chief operating officer of Anchor Gaming, also addressed the Real Trends conference sponsored by Colliers International.

Lee, a real estate consultant and director of public relations for First American Title of Nevada, identified property at Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue as the city's next growth hot spot.

Mirage owns most of the land on the west side of the Strip between the Bellagio and the Monte Carlo hotel-casino, which the company owns jointly with Circus Circus Enterprises.

Lee says he has no inside information from Mirage; he's just been carefully studying what the company lacks and listening to what Mirage Chairman Steve Wynn has been telling audiences at gaming and tourism conferences recently.

At the Governors Conference on Travel and Tourism last month, Wynn said the company was considering building two or more 1,200- to 1,500-seat theaters. The company also hired longtime Hollywood agent Sandy Gallin to oversee the company's entertainment plans.

Earlier this month, Wynn told the American Leisure and Lodging Summit that optimism is high in Las Vegas as a center for retail and entertainment as well as gambling.

"You kind of have to step back and look at what Mirage doesn't have," Lee told about 250 in attendance. "One of the things they don't have is a big arena for concerts and boxing matches. They already sell thousands of tickets each night for Cirque du Soleil, Siegfried and Roy and O. And many of those tickets are being sold by their competitors."

Other neighbors in Lee's "hot spots" neighborhood: WorldStar Resorts' Polo Towers and Jockey Club time-share resorts and the new Aladdin hotel-casino. Lee is enthused with the Aladdin's planned entry in the retail market, Desert Passage, which he said will be a new type of shopping experience in the city.

Retail and fine dining experiences are starting to take hold as attractions that rival gaming and entertainment in Las Vegas, Lee said. There will be more retail attractions on the west side of the Strip from the Fashion Show mall to Bellagio than on Rodeo Drive and New York's Fifth Avenue combined, he said.

Lee said the importance of the area to Las Vegas' economic future is demonstrated by the importance traffic engineers have placed on it. A controversial tunnel has been debated as a potential traffic solution that would maximize Mirage's 817 feet of Strip frontage. Lee said he didn't know how the traffic flow would be resolved, but noted the stakes are high: Mirage has been acquiring land for about $11 million an acre.

Lee dismisses critics who feel Las Vegas is overbuilt. Noting that the $12 billion in investment on the Strip in the past 10 years hasn't been duplicated anywhere in the world, Lee said the next wave of development will produce 30,000 new jobs.

"Las Vegas is home to a manufacturing plant that manufactures money," Lee said.

But despite the unbridled optimism, Lee predicted a highly competitive market on the Strip, which he said would become "a World War III battle zone."

A videotape Lee produced gushed over several new residential developments around the valley: Del Webb's Anthem project, Summerlin with its 42 percent growth rate last year, Seven Hills, Red Rock Country Club and Lake Las Vegas, all of which sport golf courses.

In the Rumbolz presentation at Real Trends, the Anchor executive said the gaming industry has rebounded from adversity in the past and it will again, even in the face of climbing room inventory while visitor numbers are flat.

"It's a $6 billion bet," said Rumbolz, "and I'm not about to take a bet against the house."

Rumbolz chronicled Las Vegas' resilience when critics predicted its demise with the advent of gaming in Atlantic City, along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and on riverboats in the Midwest.

The critics also said Las Vegas would lose when Indian casinos popped up all over the country, Rumbolz told about 750 attending the event.

A new threat is on the horizon with new gaming venues in Delaware and Detroit and while California's Proposition 5 is unresolved, it has the potential of denting the city's gambling market share.

Las Vegas has responded by reinventing itself as an entertainment, dining and retail center as well as a gambling destination and is adding more rooms to take conventions away from other cities.

"Las Vegas has finally surpassed that Mickey Mouse city last year in the number of hotel rooms it has," Rumbolz said of Orlando, Fla., one of Las Vegas' biggest rivals for tourism.

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