Tuesday, March 2, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.
Bellagio Drive leads to the Bellagio hotel-casino. Monte Carlo Drive herds visitors to the Monte Carlo. And Hacienda Avenue guides motorists into ... Mandalay Bay.
Owners of the glistening gold Mandalay Bay hotel-casino want the name of its main drive to match that of their $960 million megaresort rather than a ghost casino imploded about two years ago.
"Without denying there is an identification thing, the request is aimed at getting people in the right entrance without having to double back," said Greg Borgel, a planning consultant hired by Circus Circus Enterprises.
Unlike other hotel-casinos that line the Strip, Mandalay Bay has no driveway on Las Vegas Boulevard. It's up to motorists to know that Hacienda Avenue leads to the parking lot, Borgel said.
A name change, however, would violate a county policy that says a street name can't be changed unless there is no chance it will connect with another road in the future.
And the county is spending $5.8 million to widen Hacienda Avenue to four lanes and stretch it across Interstate 15, where it will connect with Polaris Avenue on the west side of the freeway.
Representatives of Circus Circus, which owns Mandalay Bay, will approach the County Commission on Wednesday armed with a list of potential street names that includes Mandalay Bay Road, Road to Mandalay and Mandalay Way.
The Planning Commission, which on Feb. 4 approved the name change with a 5-2 vote, preferred Mandalay Bay Road.
The planning commissioners, who voted against the deal, believed changing the name of the requested 1,700-foot-stretch from I-15 to the McCarran International Airport boundary -- where the street dead-ends -- would be confusing.
If county commissioners, who will act as the zoning board Wednesday, agree to the change, motorists trying to access the Hacienda Avenue freeway overpass from the Strip would turn onto Mandalay Bay Road. Mandalay Bay would turn into Hacienda at the foot of the bridge.
"Many streets throughout the valley change names many times," said Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton, who used the example of Sands Avenue, which turns into Spring Mountain and then Twain Avenue. "It's been done before, but once you have a street name, it should continue."
Lesa Coder, the county's assistant planning director, is more sympathetic to the Mandalay Bay owners' situation. While her report to the commissioners says the department does not support the request, it doesn't suggest denying it.
"This probably isn't as big a deal to the general public because Hacienda doesn't continue east for miles and miles," Coder said. "You can't blame Mandalay Bay for wanting the road to be named after them instead of a hotel that was destroyed." Roads to Bellagio, Monte Carlo and Luxor were named after the casinos because they were built when the megaresorts were constructed. But a portion of Desert Inn Road was changed to Desert Inn Clark to commemorate that hotel's founder, Wilbur Clark.
"We just don't want a lot of it to occur everywhere," Coder said. "If it's one continuous road with different names, it confuses the public. That is not the case here."
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