Majestic Las Vegas to break ground in 2020, developer says

Developer Lorenzo Doumani has drawn up plans to build a 45-story hotel called Majestic Las Vegas at the former Clarion hotel site, seen Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019, near the Las Vegas Strip. (Eli Segall/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Developer Lorenzo Doumani set out to build a high-rise project on the Las Vegas Strip during the mid-2000s bubble but sold the parcel for $180 million. The property is for sale, as seen in this photo on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019. (Eli Segall/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Developer Lorenzo Doumani set out to build a high-rise project on the Las Vegas Strip during the mid-2000s bubble but sold the parcel for $180 million. The property is for sale, as seen in this photo on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019. (Eli Segall/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Developer Lorenzo Doumani has drawn up plans to build a 45-story hotel called Majestic Las Vegas at the former Clarion hotel site, seen Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019, near the Las Vegas Strip. (Eli Segall/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Developer Lorenzo Doumani pursued plans during the mid-2000s for a hotel-condo project on the Las Vegas Strip, a rendering of which is seen here, but sold the still-vacant site in 2007 for $180 million. (Courtesy Lorenzo Doumani)

The former La Concha Motel is seen on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip in this 2003 file photo. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Lorenzo Doumani

Developer Lorenzo Doumani received Clark County approvals in May for Majestic Las Vegas, a rendering of which is seen here. The $850 million nongaming hotel project would be built at 305 Convention Center Drive. (Courtesy Lorenzo Doumani)

Developer Lorenzo Doumani received Clark County approvals in May for Majestic Las Vegas, a rendering of which is seen here. The $850 million nongaming hotel project would be built at 305 Convention Center Drive. (Courtesy Lorenzo Doumani)
Lorenzo Doumani will never forget Oct. 11, 2007.
His son Dylan was born, and, while at the hospital, he got a call that his $180 million sale of a property on the north Strip had closed.
“It was the best day of my life,” Doumani recalled this week.
It was also the peak of Las Vegas’ wild real estate bubble and the culmination of a project Doumani never built. The developer is now giving the high-rise game another go.
Clark County commissioners approved his plans in May for a 45-story, 720-room nongaming hotel at 305 Convention Center Drive. The site, former home of the Clarion hotel, which Doumani imploded in 2015, is a short walk from the parcel he sold right before the market crashed.
His $850 million Majestic Las Vegas would feature restaurants, convention and meeting space, and a so-called wellness medical spa that would offer “executive physicals” where patrons could get nutritional and exercise regimens.
A 56-year-old former low-budget-movie producer, Doumani said this week he is scheduled to break ground in May 2020 and finish construction in 2023.
Given the new project, here’s a look back at the old one — and how Doumani cashed in shortly before the economy spiraled.
His former parcel, between the Peppermill restaurant and where the Riviera stood, spans 5.4 acres. It was formerly home to the La Concha and El Morocco motels, which were built by his family in the 1960s.
Doumani and hotel giant Hilton announced plans in 2004 for a $250 million project featuring a 37-story, Conrad-branded hotel and a 42-story condo tower. They aimed to finish in 2006, reports said.
In fall 2006, with the project still not built, Doumani’s group announced that the top 10 floors of the $825 million project — called the Conrad Las Vegas and described as a 654-foot-tall tower — would feature Waldorf-Astoria condos. They aimed to open it in 2009.
In summer 2007, however, Doumani said an announcement was coming in October. That month, developer Triple Five closed its purchase of the parcel for a jaw-dropping $33 million an acre.
The site remains undeveloped. Triple Five, which acquired some adjacent property nearly two years ago, has put its holdings there on the market for $30 million an acre.
James Grindstaff, vice president of planning and development at Triple Five, said Friday the company is not actively shopping the site around, but if “someone wants to give us a great offer, we’ll entertain it.”
He said the company is in the “infant stages” of a development plan but has been heavily focused on the $5 billion, 3 million-square-foot mall it’s building in New Jersey called American Dream.
The megamall is slated to open in October. Afterward, executives will turn their attention back to the Strip, according to Grindstaff.
Doumani sold at the height of Las Vegas’ real estate craze, and after the crash, Southern Nevada became a financial wasteland of soaring foreclosures; plunging property values; abandoned, partially built projects; and vacant land where plans never came out of the ground.
Doumani said this week that his bubble-era plans were “conceptual” and that given the timing of it all, he wouldn’t have built the project. He never even pulled construction permits, he noted.
“The economy would have tanked before we broke ground,” he said.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.