LV monorail schedule back on track after permit delay

Jennifer Robison

Thursday, May 2, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.

The general contracting firm that is building 3 miles of track and five stations for the $650 million Las Vegas Monorail lowered its first-quarter earnings estimates Wednesday partly because work on the project was slightly delayed.

A spokesman for Watsonville, Calif.-based Granite Construction said the company recognizes earnings on projects only when they are 25 percent complete.

Construction on the monorail failed to reach that watermark in the first quarter, when Granite expected to have its work 25 percent done.

"It's really more of a financial issue," said Granite's Michael Lawson. "We use percentage-completion accounting, so we tried to give guidelines as to when we would reach 25 percent.

"Our best guess a few months back was we would reach that either late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter. We reached 23.5 percent, and with a couple more weeks in the first quarter, we'd have gotten to 25 percent (complete)."

Bob Broadbent, president of the Las Vegas Monorail Co., said construction on the project fell slightly behind schedule due to a delay in obtaining building permits for two of the monorail stations Granite is building.

Broadbent said the permitting issue was resolved, and the monorail is on schedule for completion in January 2004.

Lawson agreed.

"At this point, we are not expecting any more delays," he said.

Granite will announce its first-quarter results May 8. In a statement, the company said it expects to post a loss of $1.2 million to $2 million, or 3 to 5 cents a share. A previous Thomson Financial/First Call survey of analysts showed an expected earnings estimate for Granite of 9 cents a share for the first quarter.

The monorail will run along Las Vegas Boulevard and Paradise Road, providing a transportation alternative for patrons of major hotel-casino resorts and convention centers.