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December 17, 2004

HAVENS

New Las Vegas Game: 2 BR’s, Strip Vu

By DENNY LEE

HO needs a $1,000-a-night suite at the Bellagio, Carl Falcone wondered, when you can lounge in your own 3,000-square-foot penthouse on the Las Vegas Strip, complete with 24-hour concierge, a chauffeured limousine and your own custom-designed bed?

And if that weren’t enough, Dr. Falcone, a 49-year-old physician from Omaha, led a visitor to his terrace, 34 stories above the din of slot machines and strobing neon. As the sun dipped below the half-scale Eiffel Tower on a recent Tuesday night, the Strip sparkled like a gold necklace studded with gem-encrusted casinos, remote but also conveniently close. “See this?” he asked. “We can go out anytime we want.”

In the biggest trend to hit Las Vegas since the megaresort casino, a forest of high-rise condominiums is sprouting up and down the Strip, bringing Viking stovetops and Sub-Zero fridges to a boulevard once limited to all-you-can-eat buffets and room-service trolleys. And gambling is rarely the draw. “The restaurants are excellent, and there’s a very active nightlife,” said Dr. Falcone, who is partial to Studio 54 at the MGM Grand on weekends. “As you live here, gambling is something you don’t even think about.”

Some 30 condo projects have been proposed along the Strip corridor, some as tall as 73 stories, threatening to overpower the Stratosphere Tower and redraw the casino-built skyline with privately owned aeries.

Early sales indicate that about half the condo units have been bought as vacation homes, many by snowbirds like Dr. Falcone and his wife, Lezlie, who wanted a milder climate for the winter, but found the enclaves of Florida and Arizona too anemic for their young-at-heart lifestyle.

TO some people, owning a pricey home smack in the middle of the world’s largest casino district sounds a bit bizarre. “When I first heard about the condos going up, I scratched my head and wondered why people would want to live there,” said Bill Eadington, an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and director of its Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming. “It’s not a long-term environment. People stay here for three to four days. It’s a fantasy land like Disney World, and who wants to live in Disney World?”

Apparently, many people do want to live in Las Vegas. It has, they note, evolved far beyond gambling and showgirls, to include fine restaurants, high-end shopping and even touches of high-brow culture. Locals are calling it the Manhattanization of Las Vegas. But a more fitting term may be the South Beachification of the Strip.

“The Strip is our beach,” said Andrew Sasson, 34, a former nightclub bouncer from South Beach turned entrepreneur, who is developing the Panorama Towers, a twin-tower, 33-story glass complex behind the Bellagio. “In Miami, you want the oceanfront. In Vegas, you want access to the Strip, proximity to the Strip and, of course, a view of the Strip.”

And like Miami, Las Vegas is attracting the affluent young — the glitterati from Hollywood, the whiz kids from Silicon Valley, the wheeler-dealers from Wall Street — with its night life. Sure, the MTV “Real World” Suite at the Palms Casino Hotel is nice, but how about your own permanent party pad? The thought seems to have occurred to Leonardo DiCaprio, who recently bought two adjacent units on the 26th floor of the Panorama for $1.5 million, and plans to combine them into a 3,300-square-foot perch. Construction of the building is expected to begin in February.

“This is where the action is,” said Carlos Gutierrez, 35, a future neighbor of Mr. DiCaprio and a radio marketer from San Diego. He was having cocktails at the members-only Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay with two young women he had recently met. “It’s just a really hip vibe. Also, how cool would it be to have a place where I can invite my buddies or my girlfriends?”

Developers on the Strip credit the start of the high-rise explosion to Turnberry Place, three nondescript 40-story condo buildings that opened in 2001 near the north end of the Strip on Paradise Road. The project was met with deep skepticism, but that evaporated when half the first tower’s 184 units sold in 30 days to people like the Falcones, at prices from $400,000 to $4.5 million. An untapped jackpot had been struck.

“Las Vegas had nothing for second-home owners,” said Jeffrey Soffer, the principal at Turnberry Associates, a developer based in Florida best known for transforming a swamp near Miami into the planned city of Aventura. Mr. Soffer is now building a fourth tower at Turnberry Place, bringing the total number of residences to 800. Only 20 remain to be sold. “We’re not just selling an apartment; we’re selling a lifestyle,” he said.

That lifestyle apparently entitles you to an imposing wrought-iron security gate, Jacuzzis, Gaggenau dishwashers and floor-to-ceiling glass walls that open to balconies with panoramic views. Then there are the perks not found in your typical vacation home: a 24-hour valet and concierge who can round up last-minute dinner reservations, a business center with on-call secretaries, and an 80,000-square-foot clubhouse, styled in the image of a Mediterranean villa, with three restaurants, a swimming pool, a hair salon, gym and 14 massage rooms.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever bought in my life,” said Danny Yerushalmi, 70, a clothing retailer from Roslyn Heights, N.Y., who has a two-bedroom apartment on the 18th floor, sparsely decorated with black leather couches and a glass dinner table. A frequent visitor to Las Vegas, he used to hop from the Bellagio to the Aladdin and back. “Now it’s just one call to the concierge,” he said, “and a limo picks us up at the airport.”

Like any get-rich idea in Las Vegas, the condo formula has spread like the latest poker tip. All along the Strip, billboards promoting the newest in high-rise living seem to be going up wherever an empty parcel sits. Most are followed by million-dollar showrooms, outfitted with numbingly homogeneous displays of granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, gold faucets and pearly marble baths.

There are the Panorama, Metropolis, Sky Las Vegas, Aqua Blue, Krystal Sands, Vegas Grand and Liberty Towers, to name a few. Real estate agents are having a hard time keeping track. Even Donald J. Trump is getting into the act with a 64-story condominium hotel proposed for a parking lot behind the New Frontier Hotel and Gaming Hall. “I’m doing the tallest building in Las Vegas,” said Mr. Trump, never one to shy away from superlatives. He plans to start sales this month. “I don’t think we’ll need to do any promotion. The name Trump is very hot right now.”

To date, however, only two condominium complexes are actually up: the Turnberry and Park Towers, a pair of 20-story buildings two blocks east of the Strip on Hughes Center Drive. The Metropolis, which overlooks the old Desert Inn golf course, recently topped out at 20 stories and expects to open next summer. Ground has yet to be broken for any of the others. By one estimate, more than 20,000 condo units have been proposed, from cozy one-bedrooms at $200,000 to palatial penthouses starting at $3 million. Some observers are wondering if developers aren’t betting the farm.

“I suspect that the majority will not pass the test for success,” said Irvin Molasky, a longtime local developer who built Park Towers with the backing of Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas impresario. “The market will probably support 2,000 to 3,000 units.”

Even so, that would give rise to as many as a dozen condo towers, and more could come if the Strip continues its frenetic transformation. Sin City, after all, has outgrown its nickname and, in style and sophistication, is increasingly lumped with New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

The $9.99 buffet has been replaced by star chefs and $60 hamburgers. Souvenir shops like Bonanza are being priced out by Neiman Marcus and Harry Winston. Serious art hangs on casino walls, and the number of theatrical productions rivals Broadway’s; “Avenue Q” is skipping the national circuit to go to Las Vegas, and one London West End musical even bypassed Times Square to open there. Meanwhile, celebrities like Britney Spears and Colin Farrell are flocking to Las Vegas nightclubs at levels not seen since the days of the Rat Pack.

Any doubts about the vertical boom were erased last month when MGM Mirage, which owns 11 casinos, announced its own condominium plans. Before, high-rise proposals had all been hatched by smaller, private companies. Under the MGM Mirage $4 billion master plan, some 1,650 luxury condos will be built in the heart of the Strip, between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo hotels. It is a new direction for a corporation built on slot machines.

“What we want is an urban environment with pedestrian walkways and residences on top of retail shops and restaurants,” said Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM Mirage. The 66-acre site, he noted, is roughly the size of Times Square, Rockefeller Center and SoHo combined “Before, you were either a residential builder or in the gaming industry,” he said. “There was no overlap. That has all changed. This is being defined as a real estate investment rather than a gaming investment.”

Las Vegas experts are already calling this a pivotal moment in the city’s history. “This is the next big step in how Las Vegas evolves,” said Mr. Eadington, the economics professor. “My guess is that it’s going to be a very successful gamble.”

But gambling, of course, is no longer the sole reason for visiting Las Vegas. “The restaurants, the shows, the nightlife, the people watching — that’s why I go there,” said Don Roden, 58, a retired pharmaceutical executive who has a farmhouse in Virginia, a pied-à-terre in Greenwich Village and now a sumptuously furnished condominium at Park Towers. “There is a certain electricity there you won’t find anywhere else.”

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