Garage goes up next door, and condo owners want out

Tiffany Brown

Some residents of Turnberry Place (towers at left) are selling their condominiums because of construction of a parking garage, at right, for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

By Liz Benston (contact)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Despite the bad real estate timing, several dozen Turnberry Place residents in the two towers that sit next to the under-construction Fontainebleau Las Vegas closest to the Strip are selling their units because they don’t want to look at the parking garage of the under-construction Fontainebleau Las Vegas high-rise resort next door.

A lawsuit filed by Turnberry owners against the Clark County Commission remains unsettled but Fontainebleau has offered to spend upwards of $7 million to mitigate the impact of the parking structure, with the use of such accents as decorative concrete and metal flourishes as well as installing a souped-up ventilation system to capture noxious car fumes.

Whether they will take a financial beating is unknown, especially because many owners bought years ago, before the boom, then bust, in condominium demand.

The view may not be grand but the Turnberry name still has prestige.

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A bill introduced in the California Legislature in February to study legalizing Internet poker for California residents could be a first step toward a national, state-by-state network of online poker wagering similar to Internet betting on horse racing.

Yet the bill isn’t getting endorsements from Nevada casinos, which benefited enormously from the boom in Internet gambling a few years ago. The boom ended with a crackdown on Web casinos by the federal government, which has a de facto ban on Internet gambling and a long-held belief that the industry harbors crooks.

Nor is there any movement afoot to propose a similar study bill or legalization bill in Nevada.

Internet gambling expert and Las Vegas attorney Tony Cabot says Nevada lacks the “political courage” to propose online casinos and the population base to make the initial investment worthwhile. But Nevada’s casino industry can afford to sit on the sidelines. No matter which state moves first, Nevada casinos will end up the biggest beneficiaries as gamblers who hone their skills online seek out live casino experiences, Cabot said.

The potential upside of legalizing online gambling for Nevada residents “is a small fraction of what it is in other major states like California,” with one of the world’s largest economies, he said.

Other states can more easily get in the game after the first state jumps the hurdle. As an example, other states legalized a form of Internet gambling called “advance deposit wagering” on horse races after Oregon initiated the practice, Cabot said.

Several bills have emerged in Congress to try to roll back a 2006 bill further criminalizing Internet gambling, though experts say it’s unlikely to pass in an election year and unlikely in subsequent years unless a Democrat is elected president.

A similar study of Internet gambling in Nevada was abandoned after the federal government reinstated its ban on online wagering and a state-sponsored study found that few Nevada residents gamble online.

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While Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming Corp. have responded to the economic decline by laying off workers or reducing workers’ hours, some smaller operations say they already operate lean operations.

“We’re pretty much at fighting weight already ... and our business is holding steady,” said Tullio Marchionne, general counsel of the Riviera casino’s parent company.

“Given the overall economic conditions, we’re happy with the way the Four Queens is performing,” said Lisa Robinson, a spokeswoman for the downtown casino.

Cannery Casino Resorts, which runs the Cannery in North Las Vegas and the Rampart in Summerlin and is developing the Eastside Cannery at the former site of Nevada Palace, says it isn’t cutting staff or reducing hours.

The 150 or so workers who lost jobs when Nevada Palace closed were hired at other casinos to fill positions lost through attrition, Cannery Casino Resorts spokesman Tom Willer said.

Boyd Gaming’s Rob Stillwell said the company “started to see weakness” in the fourth quarter of last year that continued into January and, to a lesser extent, into February.

“People still want to be social and active but they’re holding on to their money a lot tighter,” Stillwell said.