Strip lounge, casino claim vacant land hurts business

Adrienne Packer

Thursday, April 5, 2001 | 11:05 a.m.

Often new business is tough to cultivate among the world's most famous and most flashy resorts.

Stick an empty desert lot next to the entrance and a crumpled street out front, and it becomes nearly impossible to persuade passers-by that inside the doors is a first-class business.

At least that is what Lynda Richardson, sales director at the Blue Note Las Vegas lounge, is experiencing as Clark County engineers prepare to extend Harmon Avenue west across the Las Vegas Strip and Interstate 15.

"We deal with prestigious clients and corporations who are bringing their top customers," Richardson said. "They are looking to put together a first-class event at a first-class facility. To see all that right out the front door raises cause for concern."

Adjacent to the Blue Note and the Aladdin hotel-casino -- the newest resort on the Strip -- is land Clark County acquired through eminent domain a year ago. Eventually, the lot will be used to swing Harmon Avenue west.

Until then, however, it will remain a vacant parcel surrounded by wire fencing and cluttered with orange pylons.

"Part of it will be vacant another six months until we start construction," Public Works Director Marty Manning said. "What we don't use we can sell to someone who can use it."

Manning said Harmon Avenue is scheduled to be finished during summer 2002. In the meantime, businesses hope their customers are willing to maneuver through construction zones -- a fear they had when talks of Harmon's re-design began.

Aladdin officials who attended meetings about the design of Harmon two years ago said their concern was that the road would be torn up during the months after the hotel-casino opened.

The fear hardly has been allayed.

Earlier this week Aladdin Chief Executive Richard Goeglein addressed criticisms of the struggling resort's design, which allows pedestrians to enter the Desert Passage shopping center without the temptation of gambling.

Goeglein said the resort was developing new plans to make it easier for pedestrians wandering along the Strip to slip into the casino and added that he would "like to get rid of that construction look."

The S-shaped design of the Harmon extension shows the road swerving north just east of Las Vegas Boulevard and continuing over Frank Sinatra Boulevard and Interstate 15 before hooking up with Polaris Avenue.

The "S" will take out a portion of the 3-acre parcel, and the county will dispose of the remnants.

Manning said the Harmon Avenue extension project was delayed about 60 days because the Nevada Department of Transportation changed the design of the bridge over the freeway. NDOT wants five lanes rather than the four lanes the county had designed.

The construction might continue a year and a half, but in the end businesses along Harmon will likely see more traffic and perhaps more clientele.

"From a perspective of appearance we're absolutely looking forward to it," Richardson said. "I think people will no longer get the impression this is under construction and passers-by will be less intimidated and will come through the front door."