Flamingo-Strip bridges up in air

Adrienne Packer

Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 11:34 a.m.

With the opening of the 3,000-room Bellagio hotel-casino only two weeks away, neighboring casinos continue to haggle over who will pay what percentage of two pedestrian bridges at the soon-to-be congested intersection.

On Tuesday the County Commission will once again consider forming a special improvement district to subsidize two overcrossings planned for Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard.

The county agreed to pay half the $12.8 million long ago, but hotel-casinos on the intersection have battled for months over who will benefit most from the bridges and, therefore, who should pay the most significant amount.

In preparation for the grand opening of its $1.8 billion hotel-casino, Mirage Resorts Inc. built two pedestrian overpasses -- one that links Bellagio to Caesars Palace hotel-casino and the other that leads to Bally's hotel-casino.

Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates said Thursday that board members hoped to have all bridges built to accommodate the thousands of tourists flocking to the Strip's newest and grandest attraction.

"We wanted to try and do them at the same time, but when you deal with all parties, it's difficult to get everyone on the same accord," Gates said. "Bellagio paid their share and moved forward. Naturally, they wanted them for the opening of the hotel."

Tossed into the mix last month was the Flamingo Hilton hotel-casino. Hilton representatives objected to the planned footbridge linking Caesars to Barbary Coast hotel-casino, so they proposed a fifth bridge for the intersection leading to their casino.

Now that a V-shaped, two-bridge structure is proposed for the north side of the intersection, the Flamingo Hilton hotel-casino also must be included in the special improvement district.

Barbary Coast officials scoffed at the idea of two bridges on the north side. They said Hilton objected to the first bridge because it blocked the view of the hotel's facade. They said a second span would block the entire entrance.

"The bridges are a value to the community and tourists," Gates said. "Hopefully we can resolve this issue real soon so we can get the bridges open."

It will take about eight months to build the bridges once the plan is agreed upon. Obviously the spans won't help with the crush of visitors expected at Bellagio.

Residents who watched megaresorts on the southern end of the Strip open in the early 1990s without pedestrian bridges in place may contend that a lack of overcrossings and added pedestrians makes for a traffic nightmare.

When the MGM Grand hotel-casino opened in 1993, public works officials estimated that the intersection would carry more than 130,000 vehicles a day. That was five years ago.