Wynn team won’t fight Adelson’s Walgreens project

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.

It wasn't exactly a rousing chorus of "Kumbaya," but the legal and land-use teams representing competing Strip moguls Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn appeared to come close to settling a year of sometimes-sharp disagreement before the Clark County Commission on Wednesday.

Adelson, owner of the Venetian, has come before the commission on a variety of land-use applications related to the expansion of his resort, an expansion that the commission would allow only if adequate parking existed throughout the construction of the project. The planned expansion would add 3,000 rooms and, if all goes well for Adelson, would open early next year.

Wynn and other Strip neighbors, some of whom have long suspected that Venetian patrons and employees park on their properties because of a lack of spaces at the Adelson property, have battled those expansion plans.

Wednesday, however, Adelson's attorney Richard Bryan, the former governor and U.S. senator, said he was "not sure if the earth is cleaved or the sky is burned," but there was an agreement to work together with Wynn's team.

Todd Byce, attorney for Wynn, said it is too soon to say all the issues have been settled between the neighbors.

"We still have a lot of questions about this project," he said. "I don't want there to be any misunderstandings here that we are in complete agreement with what they are doing."

However, the Wynn team at least said they would not try to block needed approvals for the construction of a Walgreens-anchored shopping center on the site of the old Rosewood Grille within the Venetian.

Byce asked for and received a commitment from the Adelson team to meet with Wynn's people and Clark County planning staff within the next 30 days. The outstanding issues that Wynn's team want to closely examine continue to revolve around the complicated juggling of parking lots, close and remote, for workers and visitors to the Adelson resort.

"We want to meet not only with the Venetian," Byce told the county commission, "we want to meet with the Venetian and your staff and we want to see a full set of plans.

"We need to get our arms around how those numbers have changed. We don't know enough about it; We just want to deal with it in one session with your staff present."

Fred Kraus, Venetian vice president, said that the county-ordered independent certification of adequate parking has given the resort a clean bill of health since August, when the skirmishing of the two Strip properties set the terms for the construction of a needed underground parking garage.

Kraus told the commissioners that excavation of the site for parking is going forward "10 hours a day, six days a week."

Paul Larsen, another of the attorneys on the Adelson team, said the relative amenability of the representatives Wednesday should not be taken as a sign that all hatchets are permanently buried.

"Call it detente," Larsen said, referring to the 1970s discussions between the Soviet Union and the United States on nuclear arms control.

Commissioners, who have labored through monthly meetings at which the two sides have frequently and occasionally loudly clashed, welcomed the new spirit of cooperation.

"At least you're on the same road, if not agreeing completely," Commissioner Chip Maxfield told the representatives at the meeting.

Maxfield also would attend the planned meeting between the two sides as a neutral observer, Bryce and Larsen said after the meeting discussion.

The commission voted 6-0 to approve the latest requests from the Venetian, which included the go-ahead for the Walgreens construction and multiple parking-related requests.

Commission Chairman Rory Reid, who works for the same law firm as Larsen and Bryan, abstained from the vote.