Columnist Jon Ralston: This developer has swagger

Friday, April 15, 2005 | 4:59 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION

April 16 - 17, 2005

In a city where it often seems everyone is related, if not by blood then by business interests and political connections, the name of the valley's newest development player is fitting.

Related Companies, which has five Las Vegas projects and is looking for more, has a multibillion-dollar portfolio and knows how to use it. The Related folks are talented. They are sophisticated. And they are as haughty as they come.

Steve Ross, the New Yorker who started Related Companies three decades ago, told The Financial Times a week ago that he didn't need bikini-clad women and tigers in cages to open a project in the Big Apple. But while those accoutrements might not be required to christen the spectacular Time-Warner development, Ross said, you need dancers and tigers in Las Vegas to open ICON, a condo project, because it "establishes credibility." Really?

What also establishes credibility, and wins friends and influences people in Las Vegas and everywhere else, is money, which allows you to hire the prime local talent -- R&R Partners, consultant Terry Murphy, the Kummer Kaempfer law firm. When the company didn't get its way initially at the County Commission on ICON, one company principal, Marty Burger, suggested Related might leave Las Vegas -- an empty threat because of the financial bonanza awaiting the company on the 61 acres it is developing downtown, but a threat nonetheless.

Las Vegans who might be offended by the tactics Burger described and by the condescension of Ross in the Financial Times must remember who Related is. "The Related Companies is the nation's finest developer, manager and financier of premier real estate properties," the company's Web site declares, unequivocally.

So we are lucky to have them. And they have an impressive resume, from the Time-Warner Center ($1.7 billion) in New York City to City Place ($600 million) in West Palm Beach to lesser but still-sparkling developments in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Related principal Marty Burger described the company's vision of the 61 acres last week on "Face to Face" as an urban landscape, a city within a city, with the potential for a baseball stadium, an academic medical center, a performing arts center, 3,000 residential units, office space that will house headquarters for major local companies, as well as parks and fountains and landscaping -- amenities that actually exist in real downtowns.

If ever there were a perfect candidate to develop the 61 acres, and fulfill Mayor Oscar Goodman's dream of a mixed-use development, it is these guys. But, to quote Butch and Sundance, "Who are those guys?"

Related's labyrinthine corporate structure is as opaque as "Ulysses" and almost as dense. Follow along if you can:

Ross is the man behind the original, Related Companies, which later formed a parallel entity called The Related Group of Florida, headed by a Miami developer named Jorge Perez. Related Las Vegas is under both corporate entities but the World Market Center downtown is only under Related Companies.

Related Las Vegas, headed by Burger, is responsible for four local projects -- ICON, the 61 acres, a project on Las Vegas Boulevard and one on Harmon Avenue. But Related also has created limited liability companies for each of those local endeavors (four alone for the Harbor Island project on Harmon), which are overseen by a resident agent in Carson City, which has corporate officers in Delaware. Got that?

I am not suggesting anything other than that Related and its relatives are shrewd businessmen, who know how to limit liability and exposure, in every sense of that word. And speaking of being related, I asked Burger if his company may do business with someone related to the mayor -- his son, Ross Goodman. Sonny and Louis (as in mayoral protege Palazzo) own a run-down hotel cited by Metro as a drug haven, and they also are trying to wrest another parcel from an elderly woman through court action -- the parcels are adjacent to land near the federal courthouse Related is developing.

"I know Ross Goodman," Burger said. "We had a conversation about it before the bid came out. I have not had a conversation with him since."

But he has had a few with Goodman the Elder. And getting close to city administrations, as Related has done here, is not without precedent for major developers, here and elsewhere.

Just recently in New York City, for example, Related and Ross have been pummeled for coziness with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration. Local media outlets have reported on Ross' association with a deputy mayor who is his former business partner and on Related's ability to win a no-bid contract for a project. Newsday reported last month that Related's contract with the city is larded with "millions of dollars in government subsidies and tax breaks," making it what Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is running for mayor, called "risk-free for Related." The company also has donated more than $1 million to NYC2012, which is a private organization formed to hype the city's efforts to win the 2012 Olympic Games.

All of this is interesting and potentially, ahem, related to what's happening here. The city of Las Vegas is about to unveil its 61-acres deal with Related, which is close to the Goodman administration and surely will be a major contributor to OPAC, a private organization Goodman says will be used to promote the city. Start spreading the news ...

Goodman and Related have talked very little about the negotiations and the give and take involved. But will this be a deal where the city just gives and Related just takes? "At the end, everybody is going to be very happy," His Honor assured reporters last week.

Let's hope so. Remember, if we don't keep the Related folks happy, they might take their billions, their development plans and all of their companies and go home.