NLV Golf course owner ready to try again on gaming permit

Diana Sahagun

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2000 | 11:01 a.m.

After a month's delay, the owners of the Craig Ranch Golf Course will appear before the North Las Vegas Planning Commission Wednesday to ask for a gaming permit -- this time with the necessary paperwork in hand.

Stimson Enterprises Inc.'s application for a gaming permit and gaming enterprise district was delayed last month after the company filed a required impact statement late. The statement addresses how a casino will affect the area.

The company has since filed the necessary paperwork required by Senate Bill 208, also known as the neighborhood casino bill.

If approved, the company plans to transfer the 36-acre gaming parcel on the golf course to Station Casinos Inc. to build Craig Ranch Station. Station already has a casino site approved near Craig Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard, but has proposed switching sites.

If Station is allowed to switch to the golf course off Craig Road and Commerce Street, the company will give up rights to its former parcel. There are separate negotiations in the works to allow Universal Health Services Inc. to purchase the former casino site off Martin Luther King if Station's switch is approved.

City staff will recommend that the commission add a stipulation to the casino application to ensure that three small parcels of land set aside by the owners will not be developed into a casino.

To comply with SB208, which requires neighborhood casinos to be 500 feet from a residential area, Stimson had to lop off three parcels totaling five acres, which are not included in the casino parcel.

Because the company has not said what or when any development will go on those parcels, the city will ask for a guaranteed buffer by requiring Stimson to add 20 feet of landscaping with a wall to serve as a barrier between the casino site and the three commercial sites.

If the City Council OKs the gaming enterprise district, Stimson must still submit a final development plan that provides more information on landscaping, building elevations and floor plans.