Mirage may move up plans for new resort

LAS VEGAS - Another megaresort may be taking shape on the Las Vegas Strip sooner than expected.

Mirage Resorts Inc. says a double-digit increase in visitor volume and booming revenue figures have prompted the company to move up the schedule for work on a new resort.

The word comes just months after tourism officials and gambling analysts expressed concern about overbuilding in the city, where six resorts are opening over 18 months. The six hotels will add 15,800 rooms to the city's inventory.

"The response to the recent openings of Bellagio and Mandalay Bay and The Venetian have been extremely strong," Alan Feldman, vice president of public affairs for Mirage Resorts, said Thursday. "The underlying truth is that value-added properties will expand the base in Las Vegas. That has been true for six decades."

The company had planned to begin work on a new $1 billion megaresort in 2002, but Feldman said work may now begin late next year.

The new resort would be on a 42-acre site that includes the Boardwalk hotel-casino.

No completion date has been determined.

"We're still in the earliest stages of planning," Feldman said. "It's too early to talk definitively about what the the property would be."

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported Wednesday that the visitor count for March was up 11.3 percent over the same month a year ago.

And the state Gaming Control Board reported a day earlier that casino income in March was $747 million, a 10.9 percent increase from March 1998.

The March win was the third consecutive double-digit percentage gain for the resorts, and the largest March win statewide ever for Nevada.

Mirage reported a 73 percent increase in total revenues for the first quarter of this fiscal year.

Citywide, hotel occupancy levels ran 97 percent in March, up from 93.6 percent a year ago.

Bellagio, a $1.6 billion Mirage property, was the first of the six new resorts to open, making its debut in October. The $1 billion Mandalay Bay followed in March, and the $1.5 billion Venetian earlier this month.

The $540 million Resort at Summerlin is scheduled to open this summer, the $760 million Paris-Las Vegas in September and the $1 billion Aladdin next spring.

"Our concern was about whether these other properties were going to keep their promise," Feldman said. "The market has shown historically that if you keep the promise, the people will come."

He said there were concerns whether the new properties "were going to be value-added. Now that they're up and running, it's clear that they are."

"This is not a case of build it and they will come, it's a case of if you use your imagination, and build it well, they will come."

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