Developer drops lawsuit against county

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 | 10:50 a.m.

A Florida-based time share developer has dropped its lawsuit against Clark County, saying it wants to make good with the agency that will likely consider a second time share tower from the company in the future.

Westgate Resorts filed suit last year against the county after the Clark County Commission voted 4-2 against a plan to build a 43-story time share tower between the MGM Grand and Showcase Mall on the Strip. The commission had tentatively approved the project subject to the completion of a traffic study but ultimately decided that the 688-room tower was too big to be built on only 2.5 acres of land.

Westgate President David Siegel said the company decided last week not to pursue the suit to remain "in good standing" with the county.

"We don't want to be the bad guys, we want to be the good guys in the county's eyes," he said.

Separately, MGM Grand is pursuing a lawsuit against Showcase Mall owners over the time share plan. The suit, also filed in Clark County District Court last year, also named Westgate and alleged that the tower project violates a business contract drawn up between MGM Grand and its neighbors.

The suit claims the project violates a 1995 contract that forbids the construction of a hotel "or any other lodging facility, whether temporary or permanent" on Showcase Mall property. The contract also limits the use of mall parking for occupants of the mall and MGM Grand.

Mall representatives have said they have a narrower interpretation of the contract that may not prohibit the development.

This morning, MGM Grand officials said they expect to drop the suit against Showcase.

"We resolved our dispute with Showcase and we're satisfied that a project that we believed and the county agreed was too large for the parcel involved has been abandoned," MGM Mirage spokeswoman Yvette Monet said.

"Westgate has abandoned its interest in the project as it was proposed," she said.

Siegel had accused the county of bending to the will of MGM Mirage rather than basing its decision on the project's merits. The tower had been scaled back twice from its original size of nearly 1,000 units.

That Westgate's plans were rejected once by county commissioners wouldn't preclude the company from submitting future plans for another project on that site or elsewhere, Siegel said in an interview Tuesday.

He said he still hopes to develop at the Showcase Mall site and hasn't given up the fight.

Westgate, which intended to purchase the land for the tower from the mall, will simply develop elsewhere in Las Vegas if the company loses the case to MGM Grand, Siegel said.

"Our plans to build a high rise in Las Vegas are still on," he said. "We are going to build this, I hope in the not-too-distant future."

Siegel said he was actively looking at other sites in Las Vegas for the tower but declined to elaborate.