Casino is one idea for land use near scenic canyon

Sito Negron

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

A casino was among the ideas generated during a weekend workshop meant to publicly plan 1,600 acres that front scenic Kyle Canyon Road and are to be sold next November.

The plan's unique open space and other potential development requirements mean some dense development cluster -- as a revenue- and tax-generator, as well as a source of employment -- will be needed. Besides development itself, nothing generates cash like a casino.

The idea concerns some, who say it would be a shame if the inevitable urbanization of the valley, and its attendant traffic and high-rise clusters, crawls up toward Kyle Canyon, the gateway to Mount Charleston. Of course, the controversy over the Red Rock casino plan is fresh in their minds.

The November design workshop, called a "charrette," focused on ways to design a community that added little to no impact on overall valley water and energy use, was walkable, and preserved the aesthetic and environmental value of terrain features such as arroyos.

"At the end, they said to pencil this out, those people out there would need a neighborhood casino, placed in the town center, or on the road to Kyle Canyon," said program participant and environmentalist Jeff Van Ee. "The hotel property would be valued quite high, and allow them to decrease housing density in the rest of the land.

"But I found it incredible to suggest a neighborhood casino ... I'm developing a mental picture of trying to get to Kyle Canyon to escape the urban area and all that means ... and I thought 'Gosh, I'm going to have to plow through a town center, a neighborhood casino, 6,500 homes along the highway.' "

What means, Van Ee said, is "a lot of congestion, traffic and people. Maybe that's the way it's going to be with the growth we're having in the Las Vegas metro area."

City officials stressed that the casino is not a done deal, and the idea behind the Kyle Canyon planning process is to create a different type of development from that which is covering the valley.

But, as Van Ee said, the project will have to "pencil out" -- make money for the developer -- or it won't happen.

Tom Perrigo, a planner for the city of Las Vegas, said everyone agreed with the concepts of maintaining arroyos and the natural watershed, and lacing the community with trails.

"You have to trade off that open space with density," Perrigo said. "We had a keen eye to how much this would cost so it would still pencil out to the developer."

Also, Las Vegas City Manager Doug Selby said, "we would like to have a community where there is an employment center, and a resort hotel offers that opportunity."

And, he said, whether or not it's a casino, there must be some density involved in the project.

"One of the things people have talked about is keeping that community relatively low profile so the views of the mountain and the valley are not encumbered there," Selby said. "Because we do want some employment opportunities and commercial area to help support the community as well, there may be occasionally buildings more than two stories high."

The density would come in a "town center," which likely would be around where a proposed beltway intersects with a new road to Kyle Canyon, which means moving the current U.S. 95-Kyle Canyon intersection south.

The proposed beltway would be about as wide as two football fields are long -- more than 600 feet. Selby said part of that would be to accommodate future growth to the north, where the city is seeking to annex 7,800 acres of land. It also would allow such potential energy technology as solar collectors, and still-to-be-developed devices that capture wind energy from passing cars.

However, the size of the proposed beltway, and its placement, and a proposal to expand Hualapai to six lanes as it intersects the beltway, means large parts of the land will be sliced into pieces that are defined by the massive roadworks.

The beltway's size "really further complicates things because it significantly lowers the amount of land for a developer to use and complicates things because you have physically separated areas," said John Hiatt of the Red Rock Audubon Society, another program participant. "So given all those constraints, this is a very difficult area to develop actually and potential developers will be very cautious when it comes to bidding on it and agreeing to the city's demands," Hiatt said.

Other proposals include homes wired to monitor water and energy use, prohibiting rock walls, large signs and billboards, eliminating "light pollution" so people can see the stars at night, and use recycled water for irrigation.

"Here's what's really going to be the crux of the matter -- this is BLM land, and for the BLM to sell it they have to sell it at appraised market value or higher," Hiatt said. "If the city basically comes and says here's our vision for this area and if you buy it you also have to buy our vision, that in large part will determine what happens there.

"As we saw in Henderson at the last auction, the city of Henderson placed great restrictions on that 1,900 acre parcel and the result was there were no bidders. They looked at the appraised price, and the infrastructure Henderson wants, and it didn't pencil out," Hiatt said.

"That scenario may happen to the city as well, that the restrictions and obligations that will be placed upon the successful bidder may make it untenable."

John Ritter, president of the Focus Group, which is developing Mountain's Edge and Cliff's Edge -- 4,000 acres more than 20,000 homes -- said his company plans to bid on the land when it goes for auction in November 2004.

His current developments are adjacent to the 1,600 acres that will become the Kyle Canyon Gateway community. He said whether a casino if part of the project or not, density will be an issue.

"I don't have a strong opinion either way. From a global standpoint, from any city's standpoint, from a tax revenue perspective, casinos are good, but you have to take into account that every project is unique, every location is unique and not every project is going to be appropriate for a gaming site," he said.

Ritter said that in 2000 the average density in the valley was five units per acre. Now it's six, he said.

"That's going to increase, as an answer to (rising) land value and frankly also an answer to environmental issues," Ritter said. "That doesn't necessarily mean because they're more dense every project should have a casino or shouldn't."

As for his gut feeling on whether the project will include a casino or not, Ritter said: "It really is so early in the process, the auction is a year from now ... If I already owned the land and we were sitting here in April of '05, I could tell you exactly what would go in the project but there's a lot of time between now and then."

Lesley Pittman, vice president of corporate and governmental relations for Station Casinos, said her company hasn't assessed the area yet.

"This is kind of new to us and we'd have to evaluate the potentials for long-term growth but we've got a lot going on at this point in time," Pittman said. Station Casinos operates Santa Fe Station, the closest to the Kyle Canyon location at more than four miles away.

Her company is involved in two casino projects that illustrate possibilities for Kyle Canyon. In one, the Red Rock Station proposal, residents have objected to the planned 300-foot towers the company wants to build as part of a "destination resort."

In another, Green Valley Ranch, a much lower-profile casino blends into the community, and generally is considered an amenity that, as Las Vegas Councilman Michael Mack said, "blends in real nice to the Green Valley area. I'd love to do some plagiarism on that."

Mack, who represents the northwest Las Vegas area and has been involved in much of the city's development dealings, said of Kyle Canyon that "if it's going to be a work-live-play environment, a casino if done in the right manner can be a great asset, and of course it's a great piece of the fabric of our community."

He said it was "absolutely" possible to build the community without a casino.

However, he said, "One thing you always have to remember, gaming is a big piece of this state, a driver. People who are newcomers to the state say they don't want gaming but they forget that's a big economic driver for our valley."

Ultimately, he said, the city will expand north, with up to 400,000 people living north of Ann Road. With that, he said, it was important for the city to begin planning now, and to include stakeholders -- residents, planners, economic development staff, developers, environmental advocates -- in the process.

Taken as a whole, Van Ee said of the charrette and the opportunity it presented to discuss energy savings, preserving natural terrain and the other progressive development ideas discussed, "there was some really outside-the-box thinking that was refreshing.

"But then I guess I'm thinking, here we are again with a neighborhood casino, and we can't seem to get away from them."

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