Plaza work delayed until ’09

Plans to build the Las Vegas version of New York's Plaza Hotel have been postponed, a spokesman for the project's owners told The Wall Street Journal.

The $5 billion Plaza hotel-casino development was scheduled to break ground by the end of 2008 on the site of the former New Frontier, for which the developers paid $35 million an acre, a record for Strip land. It was to open in 2011.

The project's groundbreaking has been moved to "sometime in 2009," said Michelle Tsang, spokeswoman for Elad IDB Las Vegas LLC, a partnership between the Elad Group -- owners of New York's Plaza Hotel -- and IDB Group of Israel.

The Plaza partners also have deferred payment of a $625 million loan used to buy the project site, Tsang said. Elad IDB paid a premium price of $1.25 billion for 35 acres at the height of a land-buying frenzy on the Strip last year.

Tsang said the owners plan to go forward with the project.

"They're definitely committed to building. Everything is still going ahead as planned; they're just not doing it in 2008," Tsang said.