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Summarized by Kent Larsen
Marriott Keeping Its Distance From Las Vegas
(A Euro-Style Lake Resort Grows in the Desert)
Wall Street Journal pgB12 21Jun00 B4
By Christina Binkley
Bass Family to Announce Plans for a Ritz-Carlton At Lake Las Vegas Site
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- While most major hotel chains have a
casino-hotel on the Las Vegas strip, the Marriott corporation is
noticeably absent. Company policy, set by Marriott's founder, LDS
Church member J. Willard Marriott Sr., doesn't allow the company to
own or operate a casino, or even associate with one. But the
Marriott-controlled Ritz-Carlton hotels may now come as close as any
Marriott controlled operation ever has.
The billionaire real estate mogul Bass family and their partners are
putting together a major development 17 miles from the Las Vegas
strip called Lake Las Vegas, which sits on a man-made lake created to
satisfy a rancher who held-out when the US Government bought up the
land now under Lake Mead. They are expected to announce plans for a
Ritz-Carlton hotel, 900 condominiums, a span, casino, luxury shopping
and office-space development at the resort, which is meant to cater
to a more upscale clientele than the Las Vegas strip
But Marriott has put some restrictions on the deal. Unlike other Las
Vegas area casino-hotel complexes, Ritz-Carlton will have no
financial involvement in the casino, which will be connected to, but
operated separately from, the hotel. Marriott is taking an
undisclosed financial position, which includes a mezzanine loan, in
the hotel portion of the project.
Ritz-Carlton hasn't ruled out other resorts in Las Vegas. This is its
third plan in the Las Vegas-area, following an earlier deal with MGM
Grand Inc. on the Las Vegas strip that Ritz-Carlton backed out of,
and a private spa outside the city. Ritz-Carlton's vice president of
development, Phil Keb adds the Lake Las Vegas deal doesn't preclude
another on the strip, "We will still consider doing a strip resort,"
he says.
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