Las Vegas Business Press :: News Update : New tower, more convention space planned for Hard Rock

New tower, more convention space planned for Hard Rock

Sale of surplus land characterized as difficult

BY DAVID McKEE

Morgans Hotel Group CEO Ed Scheetz, in an interview in this morning’s Las Vegas Review Journal, states that his company is well along with expansion plans for its newly obtained Hard Rock Hotel & Casino -- plans that would be announced “shortly.” Scheetz’s scheme was characterized as one that will “expand and upgrade” the Hard Rock.

Barring a last-minute change of mind by Scheetz, those plans are actually a matter of public record and have been since at least mid-November, when they turned up on the agenda of the Clark County Planning Commission’s Nov. 21 meeting. If actualized, they would call for Morgans to cannibalize much of the Hard Rock’s surface parking and part of the adjacent Paradise Bay Club.

Morgans proposes a 180-foot-tall, 349-room hotel tower “located between the existing hotel building and an established parking garage” on the north side of the Hard Rock’s acreage. An extension of the hotel-casino’s podium level will push the Hard Rock’s main floor eastward, to within 20 feet of Paradise Road. Morgans has designated this extension for convention space, more retail and back-of-house functions. The company also proposed to expand three of the Hard Rock’s six eateries to 10,000 square in total.

The southernmost six acres of the Paradise Bay Club, which are not gambling-entitled, would become a parking lot, at least for the duration of construction. “The parking lot will not be utilized by the public,” the Planning Commission’s staff writes, “and the applicant is requesting to waive the … landscaping requirements.”

Slicing off the Paradise Bay Club’s access to Harmon Avenue could complicate Morgans’ efforts to sell off the former condo complex, obtained as part of the overall, $770 million Hard Rock deal. Already, Morgans has signaled its intention to sell the remaining 17 acres at a loss of nearly $3 million an acre. Said one source in the real estate community, “there [are] not any serious buyers right now (Jan. 18).” The source characterized the remainder of the Paradise Bay site as difficult “because it would have no frontage on any major street, just as small entrance … off of Paradise.”

Morgans has made no public announcement regarding Sheetz’s plan, stated at the time the Hard Rock purchase agreement was announced last May, that Morgans would terminate the property’s on-site reservation, marketing, merchandising and accounting departments.

dmckee@lvbusinesspress.com | 702-547-9174 x318

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