Commission puts Bally’s-Sahara monorail on track

Thursday, Dec. 3, 1998 | 11:09 a.m.

County commissioners kept a $350 million private monorail project on track, but residents of an exclusive neighborhood felt they got railroaded in the vote.

Commissioners on Wednesday voted 6-1 to approve a 50-year franchise agreement and a use permit to the MGM Grand-Bally's Monorail LLC for a four-mile monorail route corridor linking Bally's and the Sahara hotel-casino.

Engineering on the project is expected to begin early next year with construction starting by summer. The project isn't expected to be completed until 2002.

Although MGM Grand-Bally's was directed to seek other route options, Wednesday's commission action effectively locks in where the track will go.

The proposed route is an extension of the monorail that operates between the MGM Grand and Bally's hotel-casinos. The proposal would add a station at the new Aladdin property. From Bally's, the route runs north along the rear of the Flamingo Hilton, Imperial Palace and Harrah's properties, then east adjacent to the Venetian and the Sands Expo Center to Koval Lane.

From there, it would go north to Sands Avenue, east to Paradise Road, then north to the Sahara hotel-casino. In all, there would be eight stations with several hotels kicking in about $15 million apiece for a stop along the route.

The section along Sands and Paradise is bad news to about 50 residents of Desert Inn Estates, who unsuccessfully fought throughout the five-hour hearing to derail the proposal.

After the vote, Paula Quagliana, president of the Desert Inn Homeowners Association, said she would regroup with her association's attorney to plan the organization's next move.

"We were begging to be a part of the process," Quagliana said, "but they (commissioners) weren't listening to us."

Quagliana said the proposed location of the monorail track along Sands and Paradise would bring the elevated transport system to within 50 feet of some homes in the neighborhood. She said she researched the effect a monorail system recently built in Vancouver, B.C., had on residences there and found that homes lost 15 percent of their value.

The houses in Desert Inn Estates are worth between $350,000 and $500,000, some homeowners said.

Representatives of the monorail developers say they would prefer to run the track closer to Las Vegas Boulevard and away from the neighborhood. They say they would like to run the monorail to the Fashion Show mall, the Frontier hotel-casino, the Desert Inn and The Venetian. But they say they have been blocked by Strip properties that may lose land on the right-of-way the developers say they'll need.

MGM-Bally's officials singled out the Desert Inn hotel-casino as the property that is the biggest stumbling block in negotiations because in order to reach the public streets the company wants to use for right-of-way, the track would have to pass through property owned by the resort.

Developers expressed some optimism for a change in heart if the resort were sold by Starwood Resorts & Hotels. Starwood is trying to sell the resort.

But even if it were to be sold, monorail developers would have to go back to the drawing board on their route, since the use permit specifically identifies the 125 acres along a corridor ranging in width from 90 to 140 feet. If that route were to change, the commission would have to start over with the permit process.

Most commissioners expressed misgivings about the route while supporting the monorail concept prior to the vote.

"There is nothing we can say or do if we approve this franchise agreement that will satisfy those homeowners," said Commissioner Bruce Woodbury. "That'll be the case two weeks from now and that'll be the case two months from now."

The Desert Inn homeowners weren't the only ones concerned about the project.

A representative of the 360-room Budget Suites of America on Paradise Road said his company is worried about the placement of the monorail guideway supports along the center of Paradise. If the center lane were to be used for the supports, the left-turn lane along the center of the street would be blocked, frustrating southbound motorists wanting to turn into the Budget Suites property.

The issue is expected to be reviewed in a future hearing on a traffic study that is being conducted by the developers as a condition of the project's approval. The problem could be solved by installing a bridge that would lift the monorail track from outside supports instead of with a center support.

The Venetian hotel-casino also filed written objections to the franchise agreement. Attorney Lance Earl listed nine concerns, ranging from complaints about "sweetheart deals" that would allow MGM and Hilton guests reduced rates on the train at the expense of other riders to fears that farebox revenues would not pay for the project, leaving the bill with taxpayers.

Developers say the monorail will be paid for privately, with contributions from the participating resorts and farebox revenues paying the bills. Critics are worried about ridership projections, since farebox revenues have always fallen short on public transportation projects nationwide.

MGM-Bally's wants the state to act as a "conduit issuer" of tax-exempt bonds to capitalize construction.

Others attending the meeting said they were hopeful that the monorail would be compatible with a public fixed-guideway system under study by the Regional Transportation Commission of Clark County.

The RTC is in the middle of drafting an environmental impact statement on its 5.2-mile system linking downtown Las Vegas with the Strip corridor. The RTC has not selected the type of transportation technology it would use, but planners say they are leaning toward light rail, which would be incompatible with monorail tracks.

A provision in the MGM-Bally's franchise agreement directs construction of larger train stations at the Sahara and the Las Vegas Convention Center to accommodate both the monorail tracks and whatever system the RTC builds.

The RTC's fixed guideway subcommittee is meeting today and is expected to review the MGM-Bally's franchise as well as get an update on the status of its own environmental impact statement. The group also is expected to accept a proposal from Transco, a Honolulu-based company that is developing monorails in China and has proposed financing and building a monorail system in Las Vegas.