SEARCH NEWS:

 

Wynn Proceeds With Desert Inn Plans

LAS VEGAS, Nevada –- Desert Inn owner Steve Wynn said Wednesday he will move ahead with plans to implode a 14-story tower and redevelop the 220-acre north Strip site despite the uncertainties plaguing the U.S. economy.

The implosion is scheduled for 2 a.m. Oct. 23 in what Wynn said will be a low-key event lacking the national publicity of his 1993 implosion of the Dunes to make way for the Bellagio.

"We picked the most innocuous hour to minimize disruption to neighboring properties, the (Fashion Show) mall and traffic," Wynn said.

Last week's destruction of the World Trade Center towers left some wondering whether Wynn would implode the Desert Inn's August Tower.

But Wynn said that an implosion is actually the safest method for knocking down the structure.

A second smaller tower was recently knocked down with a wrecking ball, and two others will be incorporated into the new megaresort.

"This isn't going to be much of an implosion anyway," Wynn explained. "We spent about $500,000 on pyrotechnics to make the Dunes implosion a spectacle, but we're not going to make this a public event."

Wynn purchased the Desert Inn in June 2000 for $270 million in cash after billionaire Kirk Kerkorian led a surprise buyout of Mirage Resorts, which Wynn headed while serving as the company's chairman. He closed the Desert Inn two months later to redevelop the site.

The developer of Bellagio, The Mirage and Treasure Island said he is excited about the progress he and his 240 employees are making on the new project.

In place of the 51-year-old Desert Inn, Wynn plans a water-themed megaresort with a 2,455-room, 42-story hotel tower and a 4-acre man-made lake. Plans filed with the county last month projected a 45-story tower.

Wynn envisions a property that will compete with Bellagio to capture the high end of the Las Vegas market.

"We're advantaged and stimulated to be competing with Bellagio," he said. "When we built Bellagio, we only had to top The Mirage. It can't be another Bellagio, but it has to be at least as good. (Our design team) knows Bellagio's strengths and weaknesses."

Aside from the property's design, Wynn said its primary advantage is location, noting that the site is right in the middle of the city's two major convention centers.

He plans to reveal the megaresort's name when he delivers a keynote address at the World Gaming Congress being held Oct. 17-19, but he wants to keep many of the plans secret for as long as he can.

"My new hotel is about itself, and it's about the southwestern United States," he effused. "It's its own place, more Frank Lloyd Wright than a copy of some other time and place. Las Vegas has come of age, and can have its own design."

Some of the property's planned features also elicited Wynn's enthusiasm. He noted that the property's design team will use sandstone from the same quarry mined for material to build the original Desert Inn.

"The stone is beautiful, and it's from a quarry in the mountains 40 miles outside of Las Vegas," he said. "One vein is burgundy, one is chocolate, one is gold, and one is buff."

Wynn hopes to begin construction in December, and said the project should take 28 to 30 months to build. He's tentatively scheduled the opening for mid-2004.

Declining to put a price on the project, Wynn said financing it won't be difficult. Industry experts estimate the megaresort will cost between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion.

"We've turned down offers for money," Wynn said. "We're not ready for financing until November, before we begin construction."

The reigning uncertainty of financial markets doesn't faze him.

Wynn said Las Vegas' top properties are best able to withstand the tourism drop following the recent attacks.

"When the market gets tough, the thoroughbred properties show their breeding," he said. "Watch and see (Wynn-built Mirage Resorts properties now owned by MGM Mirage) Bellagio, Mirage, Golden Nugget and Treasure Island. They'll be the last to empty and the first to fill."

He plans to open the Wynn Collection Gallery in the Desert Inn's St. Andrews tower Nov. 13. The gallery will showcase some of his renowned art collection.

Wynn will retain the Desert Inn's 18-hole golf course through April before a May closure to rebuild it with golf course designer Tom Fazio. Most of the holes will sit in a north-to-south configuration, rather than its current east-west layout, preventing golfers from having to look into the sun.

Like the exclusive Shadow Creek course he and Fazio designed in North Las Vegas for Bellagio and Mirage guests, the new course will be private.

"We don't have 250 acres (like Shadow Creek), but we're building a new course on our 140 acres," Wynn said.

< Gaming News