Wynn wrapping up design of Le Reve

David Strow

Monday, Oct. 22, 2001 | 9:02 a.m.

Steve Wynn said Friday he's in the final stages of designing Le Reve, his newest megaresort on the Las Vegas Strip -- and that he won't seek out financing until he's finished.

"Until I finish the final details of this design, I don't have a budget to raise the money," Wynn said. "I have to know exactly what it costs when I finance it. When I announce the cost, it won't be like before, an estimate."

Wynn said he should be finished within a few weeks. "Then I'll be redoing the budget," he said. "I want to know exactly what it costs."

One component of that financing, Wynn said in a speech at the World Gaming Congress & Expo, will probably be a public bond offering. Wynn said he still isn't interested in selling stock to the public; the only equity partner he's announced publicly is Japanese pachinko machine manufacturer Aruze Corp. Between Wynn and Aruze, there's more than $500 million in equity in the project.

The southernmost tower of the Desert Inn will be imploded early Tuesday, and Wynn said he hopes to break ground on Le Reve -- French for "The Dream" -- around Christmas or New Year's. He's said previously it should take 30 months to 32 months to build, which would put in on target for a 2004 opening.

Plans filed by Wynn Resorts with the Clark County Planning Commission show Le Reve as a 45-story, 514-foot glass tower at the northeast corner of Sands Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard. The tower will have 2,455 rooms, and feature a four-acre lake directly on the corner.

In his World Gaming Congress keynote address, Wynn said he isn't interested in duplicating the volcano of the Mirage, the pirate battle of Treasure Island or the dancing fountains of the Bellagio. Nor is he interested in building replicas of Rome, Egypt or New York.

"It's about our desert and the southwestern United States and sandstone," Wynn said. "I want people, when Le Reve is finished, to come here and say, 'Let's build a hotel that looks like Le Reve.' It's time for Las Vegas to have its own hotel, its own architecture."

A notable drawing card for the resort is likely to be its shows. One show, which will be housed in a 1,500-seat theater, is being created by Franco Dragone, the creator of the Bellagio's "O" Show, now entertainment director and partner in Wynn Resorts.

The show revolves around a young boy from an isolated tribe in the Himalayas. In low tones, Wynn described the story of the tribe, how each boy could fly until the age of 11, then lost that ability forever. The protagonist of the show, Wynn said, is a young boy who goes on a quest to recapture that ability.

Wynn said he wanted to know only one thing: "Does he fly?"

"Steve, how big is the budget?" Dragone responded.

"It's big enough."

"Well, he'll fly."

"We're not talking about Mary Martin (on Broadway) as Peter Pan," Wynn said. "Our boy's going to fly, and people are going to come from everywhere to see it, and marvel at it, and wonder, 'How does he fly?' This is nothing like Cirque de Soleil or 'O.' It's completely different. To turn this idea into reality is the stuff of dreams."

It's also a vision fraught with risk, Wynn acknowledged. That risk is raised even higher by the fact that Le Reve must compete with Wynn's last creation -- the $1.6 billion Bellagio, opened by Mirage Resorts in 1998.

The Mirage wasn't a risk because the market demand could easily handle it, Wynn said. "We concluded it would be easier than spitting and hitting the floor," Wynn said.

And with the Bellagio, "we weren't competing with anyone but ourselves," he said.

That isn't the case with Le Reve. Wynn called the experience of designing a resort that could compete with Bellagio "exquisitely uncomfortable."

"There's no guarantees with art," Wynn said. "If there was, there would never be a $100 million movie that failed."

But Wynn said Las Vegas has been built by two types of business people -- those adverse to risk, and the "showmen" willing to take the big risks. Only the resorts built by the showmen have been able to consistently make money, able to consistently draw visitors from markets that have casino gambling close by.

"In every decade, the showmen beat out the risk-adverse businessmen," Wynn said. "Why? Because this town is built on entertainment. It was never about the gambling. The town's the show."

Discussing the $102 million he put into the "O" Show and its theater, Wynn took a light jab at the new owner of that show -- MGM MIRAGE and its majority shareholder, Kirk Kerkorian. Kerkorian's MGM Grand Inc. bought out Mirage Resorts last May.

"Risk-adverse businessmen don't like to do that (build theaters like the 'O' Show's). But they're willing to pay $6.7 billion for it when it's done," Wynn said.

It wasn't Wynn's only jab at the corporations now running the Strip. During a part of his speech, Wynn appeared to criticize casino companies for laying off thousands of employees in the slowdown since Sept. 11.

Wynn was discussing the critical role of his former employees in making his resorts a success.

"I always said to my employees, 'These buildings ... will make people come here. The only thing that will make them stay is you,' " Wynn said. "If someone doesn't get that, they're doomed to fail.

"I would have had to be against a wall, with a pistol against my nose, facing certain death, before I'd lay off a single person."

As the audience broke into applause, Wynn softened the blow, saying he'd never faced the kind of situation the resorts face now while he was chairman of Mirage Resorts. He noted the Bellagio has daily operating expenses of $2.2 million per day -- and faces huge daily losses if its daily visitation drops.

"In order to do what they did, they must have been facing dire consequences," Wynn said. "These are smart people running these businesses, and they're very compassionate (toward their employees)."

Wynn told the laid-off employees of Las Vegas to have hope, that Las Vegas will be back once again. England went on during the German Blitz of World War II, he noted, and Israelis go on with life, even in the face of 50 years of terrorist attacks and intermittent wars.

"This is a party town, and people just don't feel like partying right now," Wynn said. "But we always come back. Human beings have an amazing ability to get on with life.

"Las Vegas will survive this handily. As miserable as this moment is ... I believe most employees will get their jobs back lickety-split."