‘Direct competition’: New hotel-casino planned south of the Strip

Marnell is looking to build a resort several miles south of the Strip at the northeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and St. Rose Parkway, in Henderson. The project would span about 35 acres and include up to 600 rooms, as well as a casino, food hall, entertainment lounge, meeting and banquet space, and pool deck, according to a conceptual site plan filed with the city.

It would also be built directly across St. Rose from the M Resort, which Marnell developed more than 15 years ago but has long been under different ownership.

Marnell wouldn’t build the new project anytime soon, saying in a phone interview Tuesday that he is probably three to five years away from breaking ground.

But he noted that this area of Henderson has grown tremendously over the last several years and that he thinks there’s enough room for more than one casino, saying his resort project is “absolutely in direct competition” to the M.

Overall, developers built a surge of warehouses, apartment complexes, housing tracts and other projects, including the Raiders’ football practice facility, over the past several years along or near St. Rose Parkway in the west Henderson area.

M Resort operator Penn Entertainment has also upped its bet on the area. The company has been building a second hotel tower at the property and announced Wednesday that the $206 million expansion is slated to open Dec. 1.

Buying the debt

Marnell, chairman and CEO of real estate and casino firm Marnell Companies, started developing the M before the Great Recession. But he opened the resort on March 1, 2009, when Las Vegas’ once-roaring real estate market was in shambles and the region was battered by job losses.

“We all knew we were in trouble before the hotel even opened,” he later recalled.

He has said that it cost around $750 million to develop the resort. Penn bought the debt on the project for $230.5 million in 2010 and took control of the resort the following year.

Marnell stayed on as president but left the M in 2015.

He also pursued plans for a neighboring new resort.

In early 2021, the Henderson City Council approved selling Marnell a 9-acre tract of city-owned land that, as plans now show, is part of his broader project site.

The council agreed to sell the plot for a price of $4.3 million to $6.8 million, depending on how long it takes to close the purchase, though city leaders gave Marnell up to 15 years to complete the deal, city records show.

As part of the transaction, he agreed to develop a resort and invest at least $250 million in the project.

‘Enough room for a couple players’

Marnell’s project would be built in multiple phases, and the site plan filed with the city shows the full potential buildout, according to a letter to city officials this summer from land-use consultant Michael Tassi.

For instance, the plans show the hotel would have 200 rooms in the first phase and another 400 rooms in the second phase.

A portion of the project site is in unincorporated Clark County, property records show, but Marnell’s team wants to annex that section into Henderson.

City staff were scheduled to review the plans Thursday.

Marnell filed for a concept plan review, which is an initial application to get comments and direction on next steps, according to the city’s public information office, which noted there will be additional project applications that must go before the Planning Commission and City Council before any land sale is completed.

Las Vegas’ tourism industry — the lifeblood of the region’s casino-heavy economy — is lucrative yet fiercely competitive, and building a new resort is not a cheap or easy undertaking. As it stands, construction costs nationally have soared in recent years, borrowing costs are high, and Las Vegas is grappling with a tourism slump this year.

All told, Marnell said that the project site is in an exciting location and that while the timing isn’t right to build the resort now, it could be in the coming years.

“I think there’s enough room for a couple players,” he said.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.