Station Casinos petitions for more land in Inspirada

By Jeremy Twitchell

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008 | 11:39 a.m.

Station Casinos is working on acquiring more land for a possible future casino in Inspirada, but any potential project is still a long time away, company representatives say.

When Inspirada developers redesigned the street plan for the development’s town center, it freed up an additional eight acres of Station’s 45 acres in the heart of the mixed-use development for gaming. The current gaming overlay covers 37 of those acres.

The Henderson Planning Commission recommended last week that the city grant a request from Station to add those eight acres to its gaming overlay district. The City Council is scheduled to make a final ruling on the request Oct. 21.

Station Casinos spokeswoman Lori Nelson said the company still views the property as a land holding and has no plans for it at present.

"Inspirada is in our pipeline for growth much farther down the road," she said. "We're not in the design stage and we've set no timeline for construction."

Nelson said Station owns 10 gaming-entitled properties around the state, and has targeted others ahead of Inspirada, including Durango Station, at Interstate 215 and Durango Drive, as priorities for development when the economy is ready to support them.

"If and when the time is right, we'll move forward with the design (for Inspirada Station)," Nelson said.

State law requires any nonrestricted gaming facility to be in a gaming enterprise overlay district. State and Henderson codes require any such district to be 500 feet from any residential district and 1,500 feet from any school or church.

In a memo, Henderson Community Development Department staff said Inspirada Station's expanded gaming enterprise overlay district would comply with all of those requirements.

Matt Heinhold, vice president and corporate counsel for Station Casinos, told the Planning Commission that the application did not include a request to expand the approved size of the gaming area, which is 153,000 square feet.

"Could that change in the future? Sure," he said. "But we're not making any plans to that effect at this time."

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or [email protected].