Columnist Hal Rothman: Wondering how much is too much to pay to see your name in neon lights across the Las Vegas skyline

Hal Rothman

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006 | 7:56 a.m.

Hal Rothman is a professor of History at UNLV. His column appears Sunday.

No place makes people's eyes bigger than their stomach than Las Vegas does.

The scale on which we operate, the cavalier way that cash is king, the nearly $3 billion hotels, the 25,000 or more housing starts a year, and the ever-escalating cost not only of land but also of construction, has made us a different kind of Mecca.

People used to put their money on the tables, hoping that a roll of the dice or a turn of the cards would make them rich. Now, the supplicants bring their own gold; already rich, they want something to make themselves pretty.

Everybody with money expects to be a player here. The list is endless; bad hair and big ego intact, Donald Trump stands out, but he is hardly alone. People who in most places would buy a hockey team to gratify their egos show up with $200 million or $300 million and expect the town to bow down to them.

But making it in Las Vegas is not like a buying a professional sports franchise. In most of America, you plunk down some change and you're a hero. You get positive press, invitations to the best parties and, at least until you try to hold up your town for a new stadium, an incredible amount of goodwill.

In Las Vegas, it takes a whole lot more to be a star.

The rules here are different. An enormous bankroll will only get you to the table. A couple of hundred million dollars doesn't even register on the radar screen; three-quarters of a billion makes you a bit player here and often not even a significant one.

The scale is stunning. Speaking to a group of visiting Urban Land Institute developers, I once described Paris Las Vegas as a "quaint little $760 million project on a lousy piece of land."

It took me awhile to figure out why their jaws dropped. Even these experienced professionals, who daily did deals for $150 million urban entertainment district projects, were blown away by our scope and scale.

When $760 million is an insignificant sum in the local economy, you're definitely playing in the big leagues.

The race to the sky, the incredible vertical thrust of high-rise construction, appears to be an effort to get around this problem. If you can't spend $2 billion on a casino, you can build a high rise with somebody else's money and instantly be somebody.

At least in theory, the world will stop to look -- if you stomp your feet long enough.

You can get your name in lights, but it's hard to keep it there.

Never mind that the towers are starting to fold, many even before they break ground. If I had a couple of hundred million laying around, I'd do it, too.

A high rise costs a lot less than a hotel worthy of note, a pliant media will give you your day in the sun -- how many condo projects have we seen on TV, reporters with hardhats standing by? -- and you can still strut around the nightclubs as a big shot. All you need is the right piece of land.

That's what makes this past week's Sapphire land auction so compelling. In a split between two strip club -- oops, I mean gentlemen's club -- owners, a piece of property on Industrial Road on the backside of the Stardust sold for $80 million, more than twice the opening bid.

The winner, Michael Talla, plans to continue to operate the club. But his managing partner, Peter Feinstein, expressed interest in nearby developments at the Stardust and in the condo and time-share market in general.

So much of the current enthusiasm is frankly speculative, and an auction that went from $35 million to $80 million in two minutes does nothing to quell that. What could these guys be thinking? That all the new developments in Las Vegas were going to increase the clientele for a gentlemen's club?

No, they are the latest to try to capitalize on the real estate boom. I cannot say whether they will succeed, but I do know that a good portion of projects on the books will never be built.

So the question becomes: Is $80 million too much to spend for a strip club? Not if you can find someone to buy the land to build a high rise.