It’s a new Plaza. It’s being built by privately held Israeli-based real estate developer Elad Group, which owns the famous Plaza Hotel, located on Central Park in Manhattan, and bought and imploded the New Frontier in Las Vegas. The $5 billion project is planned to consist of seven towers with 4,100 hotel rooms and 2,600 condominiums. The casino will be a massive 176,000 square feet, approximately the same size as the casino at the MGM Grand.
The Clark County Commission has approved the plans for the Plaza, though groundbreaking isn't scheduled to take place until early 2009. Also, there are several trademark-related questions about the use of the Plaza name that need to be resolved.
A preliminary injunction has been filed by Tamares Las Vegas Properties, which owns the downtown Plaza. Tamares claims it owns the Nevada rights to the name; Elad argues it holds the U.S. trademark registration on the name.
It looks to be an interesting fight. "Plaza" has been part of the downtown hotel-casino’s name since it opened in 1971, though its original name was the Union Plaza and then it was Jackie Gaughan’s Plaza. It’s only been called the Plaza for the past decade or so. Meanwhile, Elad owns "common-law" rights to the hotel name that date back more than 100 years -- the New York Plaza opened in 1907. Elad argues that it holds "superior rights over the use of Plaza by Tamares, which was adopted only relatively recently."
Tamares is currently insisting it won’t sell the de facto Las Vegas rights to the name to Elad. Though it’s no small feat to change the name of a long-time Las Vegas hotel-casino, it can be done over time. Examples abound: Aladdin to Planet Hollywood, Barbary Coast to Bill’s, Holiday to Harrah’s, MGM Grand to Bally’s, International to Las Vegas Hilton. If Elad offered enough money, it might be a good business move for Tamares to take it: It could use some of the funds to revamp the aging downtown hotel-casino while rebranding it.
If the trademark issues get resolved and plans remain on schedule, the anticipated opening date of the Plaza will be in 2012.
For a view of the new Plaza, click here.
