Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004 | 10:59 a.m.
A nearly 900-foot high-rise on Las Vegas Boulevard, a tower that if built would be one of the tallest residential buildings in the world, is to go before the Las Vegas Planning Commission for approval Thursday.
The developers are asking for a variance to city rules that require the building to be set close to the street. They also want the city to allow them to use reflective glass in a middle portion of the building.
Margo Wheeler, the city's deputy planning director, said the staff is recommending approval of the waivers on the building, which the developers promise will be a distinctive work that will serve as the gateway to downtown Las Vegas, at Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue on the former Holy Cow site.
The setback waiver is requested to allow for turn bays and a pedestrian plaza in front of the building, Wheeler said. The reflective glass will be set above the 50th floor in a band, she said.
The reasons staff recommends allowing reflective glass is because of the height, Wheeler said.
"Reflective glass emits a heat and glare that no pedestrian area should have to tolerate," she said.
The project, at 863 feet, features a 15,682-square-foot, $35-million penthouse called "the cockpit." It's planned to rise 863 feet, and contain 951 units on 73 floors.
The Summit tower is the second announced on Las Vegas Boulevard by the Australian developers, Victor Altomare and Joseph Di Mauro. Both have declined to discuss their past projects, or the financing for the two Las Vegas projects.
Their other project, the 21-story Liberty Towers at 1801 Las Vegas Blvd. South, was approved by the city in August.
Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese said Tuesday that he supports both projects, and thinks the key for the developers is making sure the smaller Liberty Towers is successful.
"I feel quite confident that (Liberty Towers) project will get started. And I think if they have success there with 1801 they'll try to go forward with the Holy Cow site," Reese said.
The projects are part of a raft of proposals across the valley, with several planned for the downtown area. It's also part of a trend not only in Las Vegas, but in such formerly suburban areas as Orange County.
Experts point to a number of factors, chief among them rising land prices and a desire to simplify residential living and shed such cumbersome homeowner duties as maintenance.
The proposals offer a chance to reinvent Las Vegas as it's lived and viewed from a distance, especially in regard to transit options -- the monorail is scheduled to extend downtown by 2007, if its current problems are resolved.
Wheeler said she recently attended a planning conference in Los Angeles that focused on the "rail-volution" and the growth that develops around mass transit.
"Everybody I talked to, from Minneapolis, Portland -- every single city is having the same interest in downtown development," Wheeler said. "Whatever it is, we're not the only ones experiencing this."
Ben Contine, president of the Beverly-Green Neighborhood Association, said he's not sure how to address the look of the Summit, which architects have promised would be striking, "but some of the criteria we would think about is mixed use, making it open to the public.
"You don't have massive gates around it, it's something that appears approachable. From the stuff I see on the Summit, it certainly looks like they're doing it," he said.
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