Casino, offices planned for Sunset and Gibson

Sonya Padgett

Friday, July 23, 1999 | 11:31 a.m.

The Thomas and Mack Co. wants to build a hotel-casino in Henderson as part of a 62-acre development that could include restaurants, retail shops and office space.

The Gibson Plaza project is in an area where the city is trying to create jobs, Community Development Director Mary Kay Peck said.

Plans call for a 210-room hotel with a 15,000-square-foot casino on Sunset and Gibson roads as part of a larger development similar to the McCarran Center, company spokesman Tom Thomas said.

The McCarran Center is a 100-acre business park with more than 1 million square feet of space, Thomas said. The complex has the amenities a business person would need during a workday, including a hotel, restaurants and banks.

Construction on Gibson Plaza won't begin until early 2001, to give the city and the Nevada Department of Transportation a chance to expand Gibson Road, extend Sunset Road and do improvements on the U.S. 95 on-ramp, Thomas said.

Though city staff likes the proposal and the Planning Commission agreed to send it to the City Council, the plan didn't pass without some opposition.

Planning Commissioner George Bochanis voted against it because he doesn't like the idea of another casino on Sunset Road.

Bochanis felt that approving the hotel-casino went against policy since the commission denied plans for two casinos in the same area, Sunset Beach and a stand-alone Sunset Station casino, within the last six months.

"We all voted against these (and) I wanted to be consistent," Bochanis said.

The zoning change giving the land a gaming overlay passed 4-2 with Chairwoman JoAnn Huffaker the other dissenter, while Commissioner Dale Lay abstained.

A casino on Sunset and Gibson roads will increase traffic congestion on Sunset, Bochanis said.

But any increased traffic on Sunset Road will be handled by future road improvements, Peck said.

"That's an area where there'll always be a high traffic volume," Peck said. "You've got incredible draws in that area so it will always be busy."

More than 1.5 million square feet of retail businesses -- including the Galleria at Sunset mall and several free-standing retail shops -- can be found along Sunset Road from Stephanie Street to Gibson Road, Peck said.

Several casinos are in the same area, including Sunset Station.

The proposed hotel-casino is only a small part of the overall plan, Thomas said.

The crux of Gibson Plaza will be office space and new businesses, which will help keep Henderson residents from leaving the city to get jobs, Thomas said. Fewer residents leaving the city would mean a decrease in traffic on U.S. 95.

But adding another casino to the mix doesn't fit into the city's overall plan for Sunset Road, Bochanis said.

"I always thought our vision for Sunset was upper-end retail," not a casino corridor, Bochanis said. "But that was just my opinion."

The Henderson City Council will review the issue Aug. 3.