Air Force red flags condo tower at speedway

Monday, Sept. 3, 2007 | 12:57 p.m.

Bruton Smith sat in the infield media center at his Las Vegas Motor Speedway in February 2006 and dropped a bombshell.

Smith, a billionaire who owns six speedways that host 10 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series points races a year, casually mentioned that he would be spending "about $300million" in the ensuing 18 months to transform LVMS into what he envisioned would be the top motor sports facility in the world.

A month later, amid much fanfare, Smith announced he would build a multi-story condominium project outside Turn 2 at the speedway, matching similar successful condo projects at tracks he owns in North Carolina, Georgia and Texas.

Eighteen months later, Smith has made strides in spending that $300million at his Las Vegas track. He reconfigured and repaved the 1.5-mile oval and built a fan-friendly "Neon Garage" attraction in the infield, among other improvements.

But Smith has yet to break ground on his most ambitious project to date - the 18-story condo tower - because of continuing objections from neighboring Nellis Air Force Base and the Air Force.

Nellis, across Las Vegas Boulevard from the speedway, and the Air Force object to having any residential development so close to the busy base.

"It would both impact our ability to conduct our mission as well as it would impact the safety of the Las Vegas public," Nellis spokesman Capt. Justin McVay said. "In a nutshell, it's health and safety concerns that we have - not only for the public, but also for our military personnel that would be flying those high-performance jets in and out of the base."

Smith, who did not return calls seeking comment, has said the proposed 127-unit condo tower would be used primarily on race weekends and not year-round. He told the Sun in March that he fully expected to go ahead with the condo project.

"We will fight to the very bitter end on that one because it's something we should do and I hope that they (the Clark County Planning Commission) approve our plan," he said. "And if they do, then we'll start building and hopefully within one year it will be completed."

McVay said both sides would continue to talk in hopes of reaching an agreement.

"We're certainly open to continuing our great partnership that we have with the speedway but, in this case, we don't feel that what they have proposed to build is a compatible option with the day-to-day mission of Nellis Air Force Base," he said.

"We all have been in communication together and we're trying to work together but we just haven't gotten there yet."