{"id":2209,"date":"2010-02-09T13:27:18","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T21:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2010-02-09T13:27:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T21:27:18","slug":"torinos-big-gamble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/torinos-big-gamble\/","title":{"rendered":"Torino’s big gamble"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Before we get to the answer, a bit of history. Way back when — even before yours truly moved here — Clark County<\/strong> obtained the northeast corner of Harmon Avenue<\/strong> and the Strip, with an eye to eventually rerouting Harmon into a megaresort that Steve Wynn<\/strong> was expected to build south of Bellagio<\/strong>. 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<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"aladdin2\"While the county dithered, the Sommer Trust<\/strong> had embarked on a costly re-do of the Aladdin<\/strong>, under the direction of Richard Goeglein<\/strong> (currently chairman of Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>). Among many odd design choices that Goeglein and Jack Sommer<\/strong> 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<\/a> in the Aladdin’s southwest fa\u00e7ade. 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<\/strong>, who now joins Goeglein, Sommer and London Clubs International<\/strong> among those who failed to produce a genie from Aladdin’s lamp.<\/p>\n

With Harmon (finally) rerouted<\/strong>, 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.<\/p>\n

Despite corporate protestations to the contrary, the interposition of the Barbary Coast<\/strong> between the Flamingo<\/strong> and Bally’s Las Vegas<\/strong> clearly chafed at Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong> — so much so that he eventually paid $19.5 million an acre for it and bought a couple of north Strip parcels as gifts<\/a>, the better to persuade Boyd Gaming<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>-adjoining acres (and the chance to unify that block) will prove too great a lure for Loveman to resist.<\/p>\n

Advantage<\/em>: Torino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,56,14,7,22,11,30,6,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2212,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}