Stratosphere thrill-ride fight goes to council

Diana Sahagun

Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2001 | 10:13 a.m.

Residents living in the shadow of the Stratosphere will learn this week whether they will be neighbors to a giant thrill ride near their homes.

Organizing for more than a month, the residents plan to mobilize at Wednesday's Las Vegas City Council meeting when an application for the 700-foot ride proposed by the Stratosphere is scheduled to be heard.

The residents will have to compete with attorneys and Stratosphere representatives who have been lobbying council members for weeks about the project, saying it would inject energy into a declining area.

The city's Planning Commission Sept. 6 split 3-2 on the vote, but denied Stratosphere Gaming Corp.'s request for a waiver of planning standards. The company is scheduled to appeal the decision to the council on Wednesday, during the council's afternoon session that begins at 1 p.m.

The ride would raise a dozen people in an enclosed car about 700 feet above Las Vegas Boulevard, rotate them 90 degrees and then drop them 204 feet. The car would gain a maximum speed of 122 mph before swooping over the boulevard and up a 416-foot steel-truss structure on the opposite side of the street.

The thrill ride would be the third for the Stratosphere, joining the High Roller and the Big Shot, which operate 900 feet above the street.

But residents of Southridge and other neighborhoods that were built in the late 1940s and through the 1950s say that people are the essential elements of a successful revitalization -- not a noisy $10 ride geared toward tourists.

John T. Moran III, an attorney representing the Stratosphere, has said the thrill ride was designed to attract tourists from all over the world, which would help keep the hotel competitive and bring new dollars to the neighborhood.

With Mayor Oscar Goodman pushing for the revitalization of downtown, Moran has said that can only be accomplished if new dollars are brought to the economy.