Basically, Las Vegas isn’t big enough for two Ferris wheels. Heck, it's barely big enough for one, in light of Caesars Entertainment's High Roller having been operating at well below the projected passenger loads. With such underwhelming demand for observation wheels in Sin City, plus an apparent lack of funding, SkyVue was doomed as soon as the High Roller commenced operation … although the project had been idle far longer than that, never progressing past the two giant stanchions that were to hold the wheel in place. Completion dates were pushed back from New Year's 2012, to July 4, 2013 to New Year's Eve 2013, and finally mid-2015. No such deadline was ever achieved.
Not even an attempt to get investors by promising them EB-5 visas (permanent green cards in return for $500,000 cash infusions) could get developer Howard Bulloch's wheel in motion. The giant bearing on which SkyVue was to revolve was shipped off to Germany for repairs and never heard from again. Anyway, since the SkyVue Web site is still up, you can enjoy a glorious vision of what might have been, including the world's largest LED screen, a project which market forces ultimately nixed.
In February 2014, Bulloch began removing the construction scaffolding – unused since October 2012 -- around the two columns. Despite this ominous sign, a project spokesman insisted, counterintuitively, that the project was "moving forward." Explained SkyVue co-developer David Gaffin, "The scaffolding is not needed at this time." The project's spindle and yoke were supposedly being manufactured out of state. If they were, they never made it to the SkyVue location. (One inspired Internet satirist wrote that the site would become a unicorn sanctuary and petting zoo.) Moreover, all but one of Bulloch's construction permits had expired and it would take months just to retrace those steps. Meanwhile, despite having been started later, the High Roller handily outstripped SkyVue in the race to completion. Truth be told, it never was much of a race.
In late November of last year, Bulloch dropped any further pretense of completion and put the SkyVue site up for sale. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Bulloch was seeking $10 million an acre for his 38.5-acre plot. Considering that any project on the land, near McCarran International Airport would need Federal Aviation Agency approval (the SkyVue site is approved for 505 feet), that price might prove too rich for most companies' blood.
Besides, north-Strip and central-Strip land parcels are going for far less: James Packer paid roughly $7 million for the old New Frontier site; the nearby Riviera hotel-casino changed hands for a similar price; and Genting Group took Echelon off Boyd Gaming's hands for $4 million (the land was once valued at $15 million an acre). Carl Icahn is listing Fontainebleau at $29.5 million an acre. True, you get a half-finished building for that, not just empty land, but Icahn's not finding any takers and spurned an offer of $450 million … $200 million short of his target price.
Bulloch told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his 180-degree change of direction had been inspired by MGM Resorts International's reinvestment in its south Strip properties: rebranding THEhotel as a Delano and expanding the Mandalay Bay convention center. "As the market improved and the other sales have taken place, we decided to consider offers on the entire property instead of putting a permanent structure on a fraction of the property, when someone master-planning this site may not want a wheel," Bulloch told the paper.
Land Advisors Organization broker Rick Hildreth said of Bulloch's acreage, "It's a great piece of property. I just think its time is a long way away." As though to prove Hildreth's point, Bulloch had tried to sell the land, home to a series of ramshackle old motels, during the casino boom circa 2007 and found no takers. Bulloch has to hope that Applied Analysis principal Brian Gordon is right when he pegs the value of Strip land (a finite commodity) at $15.2 million an acre. In the case of SkyVue, however, he appends a substantial disclaimer, telling the R-J, "It becomes a function of what can be developed on the site and what's feasible from a development perspective. Without knowing the specific plans, it would be difficult to determine what a buyer would ultimately be willing to pay."
While Bulloch thinks he can turn a handsome profit on SkyVue site, Christopher Beaver, owner of Silver State Realty & Investments, thinks he should lower his expectations, predicting offers in the $1 million-$2 million/acre range, unless a deep-pocketed buyer like Wynn Resorts or MGM were to jump in and, even then, Bulloch shouldn't expect more than $4 million. Bulloch would still make out like a bandit ($154 million) at that price.
In any event, after trying to make something of his oddball assemblage of parcels for 15 years, Bulloch seems to be finally packing it in. Whatever takes the place of SkyVue – and who's going to foot the bill for dynamiting those two giant columns? – is undoubtedly going to have a more realistic vision for the site.
