Monday, April 6, 1998 | 10:11 a.m.
Mirage Resorts has quietly been working to take over an aging motel on the Las Vegas Strip bordering the Bellagio hotel-casino, although the ultimate purpose is not clear.
Mirage attorneys were in District Judge Mark Gibbons' court last week and won an injunction permitting Restaurant Ventures of Nevada Inc. to sublease the sliver of land from Robert Cohen.
Restaurant Ventures is a subsidiary of Mirage Resorts that has been used to acquire parcels of land along the Strip, according to resort attorney James Pisanelli.
While Mirage took the big step of going to court to win a piece of Strip frontage using its little-known subsidiary, Pisanelli said the land is "not necessarily needed for anything."
Cohen leased the land in 1964 from Suzanne Tiffany, a Laguna Beach, Calif., resident and built the motel in 1970. The 55-year lease will expire on New Year's Eve 2019.
Restaurant Ventures cut a deal with Cohen to take over his lease for an undisclosed amount of money and more cash was tossed into the deal to buy the motel building itself.
Although Cohen's lease for the land did not prohibit subleasing the property, the problem in the case came when Tiffany refused to permit the motel to be destroyed.
Restaurant Ventures and Cohen sued Tiffany to obtain a court order overriding her objection. The lawsuit claimed that the original lease -- for $650 a month -- permitted both the sublease and the destruction of the building.
Gibbons agreed, indicating that the takeover by the Mirage may ultimately be in Tiffany's best interests.
According to court records, half of the driveway along the side of the motel belongs to the Bellagio and, while access is guaranteed until the lease runs out, it eventually will revert to the megaresort.
Gibbons concluded that the motel would have to be demolished at that point because there would be no automobile access to the rooms.
The expense of demolition for Tiffany would be considerable because the building contains asbestos that would have to be safely removed before the building could be torn down, the judge noted.
While Restaurant Ventures won its case, Pisanelli said that negotiations on the sublease and purchase of the building are not final. Court documents, however, indicated that an agreement had been reached prior to going to court and an order by Gibbons was necessary to keep the deal alive.
"As of today, the Bellagio doesn't own anything yet," he said Friday, noting that the Center Strip Inn still is operating as a motel and there are no deadlines to shut it down and demolish it, even if it is acquired by Mirage.
Neither is there a specific plan for the land, according to Pisanelli, although he had argued in court that it likely would be used as a driveway to a recreational vehicle lot at the rear of the Bellagio.
Pisanelli would say only that a driveway is "one of the possibilities."
He noted that a perimeter wall around the Bellagio already has been constructed and the Center Strip Inn is outside the wall.
Whatever the Bellagio's plan might be may have to wait for an appeal of Gibbons' ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court, if Tiffany choses that route. A decision on the appeal is expected this week.
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