600-foot towers highlight new Las Vegas Strip project

By Greg Haas

(KLAS) — When Clark County commissioners approved permits on Wednesday for a pair of 600-foot towers on the Las Vegas Strip, exceptions made for the project said a lot about how visitors have changed over the years.

The project, which won’t have a casino and doesn’t have a name yet, will have one hotel tower and one residential tower. Mixed-use retail, an entertainment arena and a 439-foot amusement ride are part of the design on 10 acres at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard South and Elvis Presley Boulevard. It’s directly south of Fontainebleau Las Vegas on land adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall.

Local developer Brett Torino’s BPS Partners LLC is behind the project, taking over the land after a South American developer failed to build at the site. BPS has a deadline to start construction within nine years, but they hope to begin much sooner than that, according to consultant Nancy Amundsen, who presented the plan at a Zoning Commission meeting.

What you don’t see in the renderings is parking. There is some parking, but the hulking garages that come with resort developments aren’t part of the design. The county is allowing the project to slash parking space by about half, including cutting spots for EV charging by half.

Instead, there’s an emphasis on the Las Vegas Loop — the tunnel system that uses Tesla vehicles to shuttle passengers. And county staff points out that transportation needs are changing. “The number of visitors that utilize their own vehicles to travel around Las Vegas has been historically around 50 percent,” according to the staff report. “The number of visitors that rent a car has been consistently low over the last few years.”

A Las Vegas Loop station will connect to the new project underground in a station at the northwest corner, Amundsen said Thursday.

Initial designs for the future Las Vegas A’s stadium at Tropicana Avenue and the Strip made similar assumptions, de-emphasizing parking in favor of other land uses.

How much parking will there actually be? Plans provide for 1,577 spaces where 3,185 would normally be required. For EVs, 320 “EV capable” parking spaces are provided where 647 would normally be required; 47 “EV installed” spaces are provided where 96 would normally be required.

The number of loading spaces is also dramatically reduced — 13 where 44 would normally be required.

And an open space requirement usually associated with multi-family housing has been dropped because the residential tower will be targeting owners who will use the property as a second home to visit Las Vegas — not the crowd that would normally use a playground.

“Staff typically does not support requests to eliminate the open space requirement for multifamily developments. However, the applicant has provided an event plaza/outdoor recreational space measuring 106,693 square feet in area, in lieu of the required open space. The event plaza will serve the entire development once both phases are complete; therefore, staff recommends approval.”

County Commission Chairman Tick Segerblom described the project as fantastic news for the north end of the Strip.

Phase 1 of the development along the Strip would bring the hotel tower with 750 rooms, a shopping center, a recreational facility with a pool, amusement ride, event plaza, restaurants and a two-level underground parking garage. The event plaza/outdoor recreational space is located above the parking garage level and with primary access from Las Vegas Boulevard via two escalators and staircases.

Phase 2, including the 435-unit residential tower and a 3,310-seat entertainment venue, is located on the east side of the property.

“Although all the renderings that you will see in the file look like it’s going to be a Sphere, we’re not proposing it to be a Sphere. We’re proposing it to be an entertainment venue,” Amundsen told commissioners.

The developer has suggested bridges to Fontainebleau over Elvis Presley Boulevard, but that would require additional approvals.

County planning documents also note objections to a possible heliport on top of the towers — a feature that the developer said isn’t in the plans, and would require additional approvals.