Jury tells county to pay $1 million more in eminent domain case

Adrienne Packer

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1999 | 10:31 a.m.

For the second time in two weeks, Clark County has lost an eminent domain lawsuit and must pay at least $1 million more than it had originally offered for property it seized.

Longtime plans to convert an old airplane into a theme restaurant were officially grounded when Clark County condemned a significant portion of the owner's land in 1996.

Attorney Kermitt Waters said Tuesday that his client, the Playing Company, was finally awarded about $1.5 million for 10,500 square feet of condemned property on the corner of Koval Lane and Reno Avenue.

On Aug. 23 in another case a district court judge proposed that the county pay landowners near McCarran International Airport $2.7 million in addition to the $30 million the county had already paid. The property owners also were permitted to keep the land.

Waters said Tuesday that the county offered his clients $175,000 for the 10,500 square feet of property where they planned to build their theme restaurant. The county needs the land to build the Hacienda Road-Koval Lane interconnection.

An eight-member jury decided that the property owners should receive about $1.5 million -- $789,000 for the taking of the land, $124,000 for a building restriction and $644,000 for severance damages.

"Our client is satisfied, and I think it's a fair price," Waters said Tuesday. "The landowner is never put completely back in the position they were in."

Playing Company bought the land in 1992 and planned to convert a Douglas C-124 Globemaster airplane into a restaurant. However, when they approached the county to request a zone change, the landowners were told of the county's plans to take a significant portion of the 1.6-acre parcel.

Waters said his client's plans were delayed because county officials never said when exactly it intended to take the property. The property, with the airplane on it, has since remained untouched.

"Once the county told the whole world they were going to take it, the project was stalled," Waters said. "At that point, you didn't know whether they were going to take all of it or part of it. What are you going to do with it?"

The county finally began its eminent domain process in 1996. Waters convinced the jury that the landowners should be awarded an amount equal to the current value of the property rather than the value of the land when it was condemned.