Sands subsidiary will lease hangar complex at McCarran

After a four-year wait, Las Vegas Sands Corp. can build a new base for its jet fleet -- at a big discount.

Without comment, the Clark County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a new hangar complex on the west side of McCarran International Airport that will generate $570,000 in annual rent, or $1 a square foot, when it is finished in three years. The lease will go to Sands Aviation, the subsidiary that operates what parent company Las Vegas Sands documents list as a 12-plane corporate air force, mostly to ferry high rollers in and out of town in style and privacy.

Among top executives, only president Michael Leven uses the planes, with his flight costs valued at $104,000, according to the Las Vegas Sands proxy statement. Two entities controlled by Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson own the planes.

In late 2007, Sands had apparently won a deal to lease the 13.1-acre dirt parcel for $620,000, but then got caught in a furious bidding war that included an affiliate of Wynn Resorts Ltd. and the developer Marnell Corrao. After 96 separate bids, Rightpath Limited Development Group of Scottsdale, Ariz., emerged as the winner at $4.4 million.

But after announcing that it would spend $60 million on a private air terminal, Rightpath ran into financial problems and defaulted on its lease before it stuck the first shovel in the ground, clearing the way for Las Vegas Sands to return. This time, it received a 40-year lease, rather than the 30 years initially proposed.

Sands officials did not return calls about their construction plans. Clark County Department of Aviation documents show that a first stage covering 343,000 square feet is to be finished by March 2013, followed by a 227,000-square-foot addition in September 2014. The estimated cost was not available Wednesday.

Several other gaming companies, including Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts International, also have jets but only Caesars Entertainment Corp. has its own facility at a relatively compact 96,000 square feet. Sands Aviation now shares a hangar complex on Koval Lane with several other tenants.

By contrast, Signature Flight Support, which runs hangars and services private planes, has 3.7 million square feet.

The Adelson-controlled entities lease the planes to Sands Aviation, which employs about 75 people. This year's Las Vegas Sands proxy statement reported that the company paid $22.2 million for the use of the jets on terms that "do not provide for profits or a return on investment to the companies controlled by Mr. Adelson."

The fleet ranges from a Gulfstream III, with about a dozen seats, to a truncated version of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet. According to aircraft registries, many of the planes were formerly owned and several are more than 20 years old.

Aviation aficionados, who term themselves spotters, have posted photos or YouTube videos of Las Vegas Sands planes, with their dark blue bellies and twin tail stripes, at airports from Berlin to Tel Aviv, Israel, to Singapore.

As Las Vegas Sands' geographic reach has spread, the fleet has grown. The 2006 proxy statement mentioned just four planes and payments totaling
$1.9 million.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.