Esko Kiuru - Las Vegas NV Mortgage Consultant

Famous corporate raider Carl Icahn is one step closer to selling a company under his control, the American Casino & Entertainment Properties, as the Nevada Gaming Control Board recommends the transaction for approval. The buyer is Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, an affiliate of the Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs. The sale is set to close in February.

American Casino operates locally the Stratosphere and two Arizona Charlie's gaming houses in the suburbs and also the Aquarius at the southern tip of Nevada in Laughlin.

For the near term, Whitehall Street plans to spend about $54 million in upgrades and additions in the acquired properties. In the long term it may have much bigger ideas. Stratosphere comes with a chunk of undeveloped land and it could be used for a high-rise condominium tower, which now is the hot trend in Las Vegas. Stratosphere sits at the northern end of the Strip, the rapidly growing stretch that has several mega resorts under construction, including the Encore by Wynn Resorts, Echelon Place by Boyd Gaming and the Fontainebleau hotel, casino and condominiums. To make the most of that, it's only a matter of time when Whitehall Street will announce a new project for the property.

Whitehall Street is gradually becoming an important player on the Vegas scene because it already owns a 40% share of the Las Vegas Hilton. That property also includes quite a bit of land that can be developed many different ways, among them more condominiums.

Photo by Eva and Daniel

Transcontinental Corp. began developing the 3,592-acre Lake Las Vegas site near Henderson in 1990 and was building upscale houses, condominiums and townhouses along the slopes of the man-made lake. Besides homes, the project also includes three luxury resorts, the MonteLago Casino and an Italian-themed village.

The soft real estate market in Southern Nevada ultimately forced last fall the ambitious developer to default on a large loan. The site has about 400 acres of raw land left and when homebuilders scheduled to develop the land missed the required option payments, the default became imminent. The demand for new housing at that juncture wasn't there any more and the builders decided to forgo the opportunity.

The Atalon Group is the new owner of the project, being nationally known for turning around financially weakened enterprises. It purchased the assets of Lake Las Vegas for an unannounced sum of money. The transaction includes a part ownership in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, three golf courses, some businesses on the Strip and most significantly the around 400 acres of undeveloped land.

Although undisclosed, the acquisition price was likely low and rather advantageous to Atalon in the long term. It can likely afford to wait for a while until the real estate and mortgage markets settle down and then either proceed to finish developing the project under its own umbrella or sell all of it, or just some parts. Right now Lake Las Vegas as a location is still somewhat distant from the Strip, but as the city grows, it'll draw closer and becomes a more valuable destination for chic living.

For the local real estate market the new years starts with some rare positive news. The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, or GLVAR, released its December statistics and they show that the single-family house inventory in the MLS decreased to 22,005, a drop of 1,489 units from November.

Some may argue that December is traditionally slow, which it is, yet the inventory has been slowly sliding since August and that is significant. It's a four-month trend that cannot be ignored. It just might indicate that the housing sector is cautiously heading toward a working balance between supply and demand that eventually will translate into a more stable marketplace.

In other categories, the single-family inventory, although now falling, is still 23.4% higher than a year ago, so there remains work to be done. The condominium and townhouse listings grew 14% from December of 2006. Please click on the link in this paragraph to read the entire article.

The campus is still under development at Buffalo Drive and Elkhorn Road, but when it's completed it'll be the undisputed hub of the Northwest. It'll have components that will cater to children, adults, families and of course pets, besides having such public services as a fire and a police station. Area residents already approve of its progressive layout and multiple amenities and recently its reputation reached across international borders. The World Leadership Awards is a competition honoring the most advanced in urban leadership and at an event held in London Centennial Hills, representing Las Vegas, was duly recognized for its vision.

Facilities already open at the campus include the Community Center, run by the YMCA, that has two outdoor and two indoor pools, two gymnasiums, fitness and weight rooms, a computer lounge, multi-use classrooms and locker rooms. The Active Adult Center next door benefits anyone over 50 who have the use of a large multi-purpose room, a computer lab, several classrooms, a kitchen and a library. That is undeniably a lot of facilities.

The Centennial Hills Park, a section of the campus, has a wide area now open for picnics, sand volleyball, soccer, playground activity, jogging and dog walking. Phase III, which is set to be done this summer, will add an outdoor amphitheater, more green areas and a parking lot to the mix.

Another project under construction within the large campus is the Centennial Hills Library that is slated to open in early 2009. The 45,000 square foot facility will house a 300-seat theater, an art gallery, a bookstore, a café, meeting space, a reading lounge and an outdoor seating plaza. It'll fill a huge gap as the Northwest presently doesn't have a library.

Managing growth is sometimes challenging, but when done with a vision and careful planning it can produce desired results for the entire community.

On the surface the Strip is full of happy conventioneers here this week for the annual Consumer Electronics Show, or CES. According to show organizers this year's event brings about 140,000 people to town to look at, feel and try out the latest in gadgetry for the consumer. It pretty much takes all the available exhibit space at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Sands Expo & Convention Center and the Las Vegas Hilton. It's that big. And it also fills up the hotel rooms around town and that's where the friction is developing.

CES is unhappy about the high room rates attendees are nowadays charged and the food & beverage guarantees that are sometimes tacked on top of that. For example, a room can go for $130 during a normal week and for CES it zooms to $500 per night or higher, the organizers say. The city usually is booked full for major conventions like CES and strong demand has so far justified the soaring rates. Trying to find a room during these times is typically futile. Some resorts are also requesting from their corporate customers a $75 to $100 food & beverage guarantee per room in the form of a banquet dinner or a reception.

But now the quiet mumbling about the ever-increasing price structure here is spilling out onto the convention aisles and growing into a chorus of complaints. To an extent that CES is now scouting other locations for the popular event, among them Chicago and Orlando and possibly some international destinations, too.

Should it decide to exit would deal a sizable blow to the economics of Las Vegas. For one, it has nicely filled a gap in the normally slow month of January when people are still recovering from the exhausting holidays. Perhaps even more significant is the exposure Las Vegas gets when a new Panasonic 150-inch plasma screen, for instance, is introduced at the show and related stories are carried in newscasts around the world. That favorable impact can't be measured in dollars but it's invaluable.

As the city has grown in popularity among ordinary visitors and convention-goers, its affordable image has started to erode. It still offers a lot for the money, but it seems that the cost level here is reaching toward the upper end where people start thinking about alternatives. Yet, not until the mega resorts begin reporting empty rooms during major events will prices turn lower. That's just basic economics.