Saturday, November 20, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Showdown develops over plans for casino

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The Strip's MGM Grand bills itself as the City of Entertainment.

Far from the bright lights of Las Vegas Boulevard, Station Casinos might create its own, larger metropolis of entertainment on 67 acres of vacant land near a new elementary school, a highway and dense neighborhoods.

But a towering megaresort isn't what some residents of nearby Rhodes Ranch had in mind.

"Our original thing when most of us moved in here is we were told by salespeople that it was going to be a Green Valley Station-type deal," said Rhodes Ranch homeowner Mike Tomko, referring to the 80-foot-tall casino in Henderson. "All of the sudden, it's changed. Suddenly, we've changed that to a monstrosity."

After hearing Station Casinos is entitled to build its planned Durango Station as a 217-foot casino with 43,000 more square feet of gaming than the MGM Grand, nearby homeowners are questioning the definition of "neighborhood casino."

"What they have proposed isn't close to being considered a neighborhood casino," said Anna Radford, who lives near the proposed site. "It's inappropriate for what we have out there."

Some homeowners in the 1,375-acre Rhodes Ranch community are calling on the District F Clark County commissioner, Lynette Boggs McDonald, to protect their neighborhood from a large-scale casino.

But some are skeptical of Boggs McDonald's past ties to Station Casinos as a member of the company's board of directors. Residents said they also were unhappy to see a Review-Journal photograph of Boggs McDonald and Lesley Pittman, vice president of corporate and government relations for Station Casinos, embracing on election night.

"Some of our concerns was she had a tight relationship with them, but you always try to give someone the benefit of the doubt," Radford said. "We have been burned so badly in the past by thinking, 'They're in the public eye; they'll do the right thing.' Well, not really."

The use permit allowing a 217-foot-tall casino with a 215,000-square-foot gaming floor was granted when former District F Commissioner Erin Kenny was in office. The permit was requested by Jim Rhodes, who owned the land and subsequently sold it to Station Casinos.

Because a hotel-casino on the southwest corner of the Las Vegas Beltway and Durango Drive is designated in Clark County's 1997 development agreement with Rhodes Ranch, the county can't legally quash the project, officials said Friday.

"The site is not the question. It's what kind of casino will be built on the site that is a valid question," said Boggs McDonald. "What was granted originally ... that is not a neighborhood casino."

Boggs McDonald has said that her past relationship with Station Casinos simply puts her in a better position to strike a compromise between the company and residents.

On Friday, Boggs McDonald said she will make her direction clear to Station officials on Dec. 8, when representatives request an extension for the design review, a process in which they outline the dimensions of the project.

"The outcome I would be hoping for would be to take an opportunity for Station Casinos to work with the neighborhood and come back with a product much more neighborhood friendly than what has previously been approved," Boggs McDonald said.

The casino is included in the Rhodes master plan. State law says casinos in master plans are exempt from a 1997 law that limited the spread of neighborhood casinos. Additionally, the county cannot kill the project because it is included in a signed development agreement, said Deputy District Attorney Rob Warhola.

"As far as denying the entire use, we can't do that," he said. "We can do minor things to make sure it fits within the community; but to say we don't want it anymore, I don't think we can defend that in court."

Some residents don't want it because of the way the community has developed since the original development plan was approved.

Land around the casino is zoned for homes. Tanaka Elementary School is about 1,500 feet west of the site.

When the development agreement was approved in 1997, Rhodes Ranch was designated to be an age-restrictive neighborhood like Sun City. Now, hundreds of elementary school-age children live in the community.

Tanaka is the closest elementary school to the gated Rhodes Ranch. Because buses do not enter gated communities, most students gather at the Durango Drive bus stop or trek to the school on foot.

By the time the casino is built, another neighborhood will sprout between the casino project and the school.

Dusty Dickens, director of zoning and real estate for the Clark County School District, said her interest will be the road patterns between the casino and the school.

"Someone who has been drinking alcohol and coming around the school creating a safety issue, that's our concern," she said.

Station Casinos purchased an 80-acre site for $31.5 million in early 2000. The company later sold 10 acres to a residential builder.

Company executives say they attended a Town Board meeting two years ago during which school district officials discussed plans to develop a school near the planned casino site.

"We stood up and said, 'We want you to know we own property here and we intend to build a property here,' " said Scott Nielson, the company's executive vice president of development and government relations.

Nielson said school district officials noted they had no problem with the location of a possible Durango Station.

Homeowners in and around the Rhodes Ranch community aren't waiting for negotiations to begin with Station Casinos. Rather, they're borrowing strategies from Summerlin residents who engaged in an ugly fight with the company over its Red Rock Station casino, which led to its proposed 300-foot hotel-casino towers being reduced to 198 feet.

Like Summerlin residents, Rhodes homeowners enlisted the Culinary union to help fund their battle against the non-union gaming company. The first move was to send out mailers to 4,000 homes that read: "Schools. Kids. Homes. Casino?"

Station Casinos executives say residents are gearing up for battle prematurely. The reason the company is requesting a time extension for their design review is that architects have yet to begin designing the project.

Pittman said her company also learned lessons from the contentious fight over Red Rock Station and is willing to meet with homeowners.

"We're not ready to put the pen to paper," Pittman said of the design process. "It's a little premature, but if they want to sit down now that's fine. Then we can regroup when we have a more specific time frame."

Although the company is entitled to the massive gaming space, Pittman said, gambling areas in other Station Casinos are no larger than 90,000 square feet.

She expects that Durango Stations will be no different.

The South Durango Drive acreage is one of three Station Casinos sites within six miles of each other along the Beltway.

The others are the emerging Red Rock Station at the Beltway and West Charleston Boulevard and a third parcel zoned for a neighborhood casino at the Beltway and Town Center Drive.

Station Casinos executives have no immediate plans to develop the Town Center site, Nielson noted. Station executives first want to gauge the performance of Red Rock Station, which is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2006, before deciding whether to develop the Town Center property.

Staff writer Dave Berns contributed to this report.