The 303-room Nevada Landing casino, located on the west side of Interstate 15 at Exit 12 in Jean, is slated to close on April 18. MGM Mirage announced Monday it entered into a joint-venture partnership to create a master-planned, mixed-use development on 166 acres in Jean. Photo by Samantha Clemens. Michael Shaunnessy, Nevada Landing's general manager, greets Doris Harding of Florida on Monday at the casino in Jean. Harding and her husband, Richard, have been regulars at the Jean property for 17 years, spending at least four months a year at the casino. Photo by Samantha Clemens. Click image for enlargement. Lary Glen Anderson, also known as "Captain Lucky" at the Nevada Landing casino in Jean, rubs a slot machine for luck on Monday. MGM Mirage plans to close the casino in April to develop 166 acres into a master-planned community on both sides of Interstate 15. Photo by Samantha Clemens.

Instead of selling the company's two casinos in Jean, MGM Mirage executives prefer another idea: master-planning the 166 acres into a mixed-use development 25 miles south of Las Vegas.

MGM Mirage announced Monday it entered a joint-venture partnership with two Las Vegas-based developers to turn undeveloped land on both sides of Interstate 15 into a community that features affordable housing, commercial businesses, shops and a new hotel-casino.

No timeline nor cost was given for the development, but the 303-room Nevada Landing casino will be closed in April and demolished as part of the undertaking.

"It gives us a clean slate to work with and we have a tremendous amount of lead time to decide exactly how we want to define the components of the development," MGM Mirage Chairman Terry Lanni said. "Affordable housing is a significant issue, not only for our employees but for the community as a whole. We believe the growth in our community is moving south, based on the freeing up of (Bureau of Land Management) land. We view this project as a great opportunity."

Lanni said the affordable housing could come in single family homes, mid-rise condominiums or apartments.

MGM Mirage is spending $7 billion to build Project CityCenter on 66 acres between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio. The site includes a 4,000-room hotel-casino, shops, restaurants and entertainment venues and four high-rise condominium and condo-hotel projects.

In addition, MGM Mirage has 70 acres in Atlantic City it intends to develop in a manner similar to Project CityCenter, Lanni said. The Jean development, he said, won't be as elaborate.

Gaming analysts thought developing land in Jean into a mixed-use project made good use of the real estate.

"This announcement represents the latest of MGM Mirage's nongaming ventures," Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Bill Lerner said in a note to investors. "We view this as a positive, allowing MGM Mirage to better utilize and monetize some of its significant land holdings."

Including its 10 Strip casinos, MGM Mirage has 831 acres of land in Southern Nevada.

The Nevada Landing, on the west side of Interstate 15, will close April 18. The property's 300 employees will be offered jobs at the other Jean casino, the Gold Strike, or they can transfer to other MGM Mirage properties in Southern Nevada.

Employees were told of the closing Monday morning. The casino, which was built by a partnership that included David Belding, Mike Ensign and William Richardson, opened in 1989.

"It's sad because a lot of people built this place into a special, family-type atmosphere," said Lary Glen Anderson, a 10-year Nevada Landing casino host who dresses up as the ship's "Captain Lucky" character.

"A lot of customers are upset because this a pretty neat hotel," Anderson said. "We don't have the lions, tigers and bears, but we have a lot of fun. When my ship goes down, I'll just paddle across the street."

Doris and Richard Harding of Palm Harbor, Fla., were at the Nevada Landing last month to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. The couple rented out the hotel's entire fourth floor for their celebration.

They were in attendance for the casino's opening and have been regulars for 17 years, spending at least four months a year at the casino.

"We're really heartbroken that they're closing this place," Doris Harding said.

The 811-room Gold Strike, which is located on the east side of the highway, will be expanded and renovated in anticipation that it will pick up business displaced by the closing of the Nevada Landing.

Initially, 100 more slot machines will be added to the casino.

The Jean casinos, which MGM Mirage valued at $150 million, generate an annual cash flow of about $6 million for the company.

Lanni said the Jean casinos had lost business over the years to Southern California-based American Indian casinos. MGM Mirage acquired both casinos and the adjacent Jean land parcels as part of its $7.9 billion buyout of the Mandalay Resort Group in April 2005.

"It came down to one casino being in much better physical condition than the other," Lanni said. "What we've also seen is that there is more business driving into Las Vegas rather than out, which helps the casino on the east side of the highway."

Lanni said, however, that the Gold Strike may eventually be closed and torn down in favor of the new hotel-casino that will be developed within the master plan.

"We would look at building something that is very-much geared toward local customers," Lanni said.

In the past year, MGM Mirage executives had been approached by potential buyers for the Jean casinos, believing the company wanted to sell some of its nonessential holdings.

In October, the company agreed to sell its two casinos in Laughlin, also acquired in the Mandalay transaction, to a partnership headed by Anthony Marnell III and Sher Gaming for $200 million. Two weeks later, MGM Mirage agreed to sell three casinos in Primm to Herbst Gaming for $400 million. In the Primm deal, MGM Mirage retained 500 acres it owns on the California side of the border, which includes the 36-hole Primm Valley Golf Club.

Keeping the Jean land and developing a community seemed to make the most business sense, Lanni said. Subsidiaries of American Nevada Corp. and the Cloobeck Cos. approached MGM Mirage about buying the casinos, but Lanni said the talks quickly evolved into the joint venture.

MGM Mirage will retain a 50 percent ownership in the Jean land and the partners will split the other 50 percent. The partnership will have to be licensed by Nevada gaming regulators because of the hotel-casino concept, which gives the project's designers at least the rest of the year to come up with ideas.

"We are focused on addressing important core issues as we approach the planning process, including affordable work force housing, sustainability and traffic infrastructure," Cloobeck Cos. Chairman Stephen Cloobeck said. "(We) look forward to working together to transform what is essentially an empty canvas into a model community."

MGM Mirage's 166 acres are near the proposed Ivanpah Valley Airport, which is planned for the east side of Interstate 15 with two runways in an approximate northeast-southwest alignment roughly parallel to the highway. The proposed airport site is between Jean and Primm.

McCarran Airport spokesman Chris Jones said the BLM and Federal Aviation Administration are now performing an environmental impact statement on the site. Plans call for the airport's first phase to open in 2017, contingent upon the required approvals and the impact statement's timely completion.

Lanni believes the airport is an added benefit to the proposed MGM Mirage development.

MGM Mirage shares fell $1.90 or 2.66 percent, Monday to close at $69.40 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Review-Journal photographer Samantha Clemens contributed to this article.