Torino’s big gamble

At a time when the bottom has fallen out of Las Vegas Strip land prices what possessed Brett Torino to make an uncontested, above-market bid for a small and awkwardly configured piece of Strip real estate?

Before we get to the answer, a bit of history. Way back when — even before yours truly moved here — Clark County obtained the northeast corner of Harmon Avenue and the Strip, with an eye to eventually rerouting Harmon into a megaresort that Steve Wynn was expected to build south of Bellagio. Time passed and it took the county more than 10 years to actually reconfigure Harmon as planned — by which time it had become a conduit into and through CityCenter.

While the county dithered, the Sommer Trust had embarked on a costly re-do of the Aladdin, under the direction of Richard Goeglein (currently chairman of Pinnacle Entertainment). Among many odd design choices that Goeglein and Jack Sommer elected upon, the most bizarre was to build around the county’s acreage in such a way as to leave a massive, blank-walled indentation in the Aladdin’s southwest façade. The resultant butt-ugliness would be one of the Strip’s worst eyesores and its never-attempted remediation was among the balls dropped by subsequent owner Robert Earl, who now joins Goeglein, Sommer and London Clubs International among those who failed to produce a genie from Aladdin’s lamp.

With Harmon (finally) rerouted, exit the county and enter Torino. His new acreage is too small and far too narrow to build anything of consequence — maybe a mall of schlock shops, if that’s his fancy. But it seems pretty clear that he’s got a different gambit in mind.

Despite corporate protestations to the contrary, the interposition of the Barbary Coast between the Flamingo and Bally’s Las Vegas clearly chafed at Harrah’s Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman — so much so that he eventually paid $19.5 million an acre for it and bought a couple of north Strip parcels as gifts, the better to persuade Boyd Gaming to part with the place. So Torino is all but certainly gambling that if he just sits on that thumb-like Harmon parcel long enough, he can force Loveman to the bargaining table.

As further enticement, he can offer 18 acres immediately to the south, now worth only $141 million. But Torino’s got creditors chewing on his ass to liquidate that land, so any sort of Torino-to-Harrah’s flip would have to come together fast. Still, when you consider that the aggregate 20 acres in question would put Loveman sitting smack-dab across the street from CityCenter, I’d be surprised if he’s not got his people talking to Torino’s people this very moment. Worst-case scenario, the lure of Torino’s two Planet Hollywood-adjoining acres (and the chance to unify that block) will prove too great a lure for Loveman to resist.

Advantage: Torino.