Yes, Lake Las Vegas has scaled the heights and plumbed the depths.
Lake Las Vegas is a huge master-planned development in the southeast corner of Las Vegas Valley, roughly 20 miles from the Strip. (You take I-215, aka US 93/95, south toward Boulder City and get off at Lake Mead Blvd., aka NV 146, at Fiesta Henderson. Drive roughly eight miles to the entrance to Lake Las Vegas, on the left.)
The total property covers nearly 3,600 acres and includes a 320-acre man-made lake that abuts Lake Mead.
In July 2008, the Lake Las Vegas management company, Lake at Las Vegas Joint Venture LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, claiming debts of between $500 million and a cool billion dollars.
Exactly two years later, Lake Las Vegas emerged from bankruptcy, with all the debt erased, $30 million in cash, and plans to complete a number of infrastructure projects left in abeyance by Chapter 11.
That is, if lawsuits don’t eat it all up first. Creditors who took a bankruptcy bath have sued the former insiders, including the Texas Bass brothers and TransContinental, a major Canadian newspaper and magazine publisher and printing firm. Creditors claim that an equity loan for $500 million taken out by the erstwhile insiders drove the development into bankruptcy –- and they’d like to see some of that money back.
Meanwhile, a new depth was reached last May, when the Ritz-Carlton at Lake Las Vegas closed. But a new height was achieved last week, only nine months later, when Ravella, a Dolce resort, opened in the Ritz. Reportedly, the Casino MonteLago will reopen with a new operator by May.
