MGM Mirage enters deal for Las Vegas condo complex
By Adam Goldman
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — MGM Mirage and Florida-based Turnberry Associates announced yesterday that they will build a massive luxury condominium hotel complex worth about $800 million near the Las Vegas Strip.
Turnberry officials said the project will include up to six 40-story towers with construction possibly beginning in the spring of 2004. The towers will be built on about 115 acres of MGM Mirage property east of the Strip and north of Tropicana Avenue.
People living in the new development will have access to the MGM Grand's sprawling casino and the city's new monorail system. MGM Mirage will receive money from the sale of the condos.
Turnberry President Bruce Weiner said that the towers will be built in six phases over a seven- to 10-year period. He said each phase should cost about $130 million to $140 million, with each tower selling out in approximately two years.
"It gives somebody the opportunity to be right on the 50-yard line," he said. "MGM is in the heart of Las Vegas. This will be the first of its kind in Las Vegas, and it's a proven product in many major cities."
Weiner said the deal made sense even in tough economic conditions.
"Most real estate projects aren't made or broken on today's economy," Weiner said. "You have to think about where the market is going. Post-9/11 numbers show the project will work. We like the demographics of Las Vegas, and we've done extremely well there. We think there is a market for it."
This is the second major condominium project that Aventura, Fla.-based Turnberry will undertake in the fast-growing city that attracts about 35 million people a year. It has already erected two 36-story towers and plans two more at Turnberry Place, which is also off the Strip at Paradise Road and Riviera Boulevard. That development was valued at about $600 million.
The success of those towers spurred Turnberry, a real estate and property management firm with about $3 billion in holdings, to launch the joint venture with MGM Mirage. Two Turnberry Place towers are already sold out. More than half the condominiums at the two towers serve as second homes for people visiting Las Vegas.
Prices for the planned towers on the MGM property will range from $350,000 to $2.6 million, Weiner said. Each of the tower's fully furnished 758 condos will loom over Las Vegas and feature deluxe amenities, such as marble bathrooms and granite countertops.
Las Vegas-based MGM Mirage operates 15 casinos in Nevada, Mississippi and Michigan. The company employs about 43,000 people and has drawn millions of visitors to the MGM Grand since its 1993 opening.
John Redmond, president and chief executive officer of MGM Grand Resorts, said Nevada's lack of state income tax should lure buyers.
"It's a tremendous place to invest your dollars. Anything from a real-estate standpoint has always done well in Vegas," he said.
