MGM Mirage Seeks to Add 2,500 Condo Units to Las Vegas Market

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Mike Kalil

Southern Nevada's overall housing market may no longer be sizzling, but the Strip's biggest gaming player believes demand will continue for luxury condominiums with a Las Vegas Boulevard address.

MGM Mirage is seeking initial county approval this week for two high-rise tower projects that would add some 2,500 condos to the south end of the Strip.

The company has not formally announced either proposal, and a spokesman said their likely development dates remain undetermined. But documents filed with Clark County provide architectural renderings and details of both projects.

The Clark County Planning Commission is scheduled tonight to consider approval of MGM Mirage's plans for The Place at Mandalay, a proposed 520-foot tower with 1,344 units that would rise on the northwest corner of the Strip and Mandalay Bay Road, only feet from Luxor's pyramid.

On Wednesday, the company will ask the Clark County Commission to approve plans for two additional high-rise towers behind MGM Grand that would add 1,152 more condos to the 1,700 hotel-condos that are there or are now under construction.

MGM Mirage was already betting big on Strip condo development before proposing The Place at Mandalay and what amounts to a nearly 70 percent expansion of the high-rise hotel-condo projects at MGM Grand.

Some 1,650 condos are planned within the company's $7 billion Project CityCenter, the massive mixed-used development slated for 66 acres on the west side of the Strip between Monte Carlo and Bellagio.

"While our first order of business is Project CityCenter, it is not the end of our plans in Las Vegas," Gordon Absher, an MGM Mirage vice president, said Monday. "Having projects in a development pipeline assures us an ability to meet the variety of commercial property needs of the future.

"There will be other MGM Mirage projects beyond these," Absher also said.

This week's agenda items, Absher said, are "initial steps on a lengthy road" and "part of an orderly process in a companywide master plan for future development."

MGM Mirage owns 831 acres on the Strip, many of which are undeveloped or underdeveloped.

County officials appear poised to support the projects.

"I think it's a good thing. The trend is to have more vertical development," said County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, who represents the district where both projects would be built. "Sprawl is not necessarily a good thing."

The shift from people renting rooms on the Strip for a few nights to owning them permanently will not necessitate a big boost in municipal services for these new property owners, Reid said.

Planners and developers project that condominiums in the resort corridor will be used much like hotel rooms: mostly rented out to tourists for brief visits.

"The owners will use them on a periodic basis, and when they're not they'll put them into a (timeshare) pool," Reid said. "(Owners) are not going to live full time there. A lot of people are buying them as vacation homes or investment properties."

Although it would be located on Luxor's property, architectural renderings submitted to the county for The Place show its exterior design retains the metallic gold-on-white motif of nearby Mandalay Bay and The Hotel at Mandalay.

"Architecturally, it's going to look like Mandalay even though it will be pretty much adjacent to Luxor," said Anthony Molloy, the county principal planner working on the project.

The two additional towers on the MGM Grand site will retain the sleek white look of the Signature towers already under development there, according to renderings.

The Las Vegas market for single-family homes has slowed as the inventory of homes for sale pile up, but county planners say they see no signs that demand for luxury condos on Las Vegas Boulevard is waning.

"The market is fairly healthy and people continue to come in with applications," Molloy said.

The Planning Commission on Thursday is scheduled to consider plans for yet another mixed-use condo project on Las Vegas Boulevard. But the hearing for the proposed R Resort several miles to the south at the boulevard and St. Rose Parkway is likely to be moved to September, said project consultant Greg Borgel.

R Resort principal Ray Shapiro, a local businessman who operates restaurants and convenience stores, has submitted plans to the county showing a 1,500-room hotel, 720-unit condo tower and an 85,000-square-foot casino there.

He could not be reached Monday.