Speaking March 19th to more than 300 business people at an annual luncheon of the Southern Nevada chapter of the Better Business Bureau, Elaine Wynn said it "would not have made good business sense to create another property that would compete with (Wynn's) Bellagio, if we had still owned
Mirage Resorts."
"There was a great deal of concern when we first built Mirage and Bellagio that we'll be in direct competition with ourselves. But Steve thought there was still room because the market was still growing," said Elaine Wynn, who's on the board of directors of Wynn Resorts. "Le Reve will offer a unique opportunity to do one more final 'badaboom' in Las Vegas." 카지노사이트먹튀
In what she described as a $2.6 billion resort and one of the largest single building projects in the nation to date, Le Reve - French for "The Dream" - a 45-story, 514-foot glass tower at the northeast corner of Sands Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard, is expected to break away from the conventional themed casino concept and set new trends in casino design.
When the property opens in April 2005, it will have 2,701 rooms and suites, an 111,000-square-foot casino, 18 restaurants including six fine-dining restaurants, the Strip's only 18-hole golf course, a gallery displaying Wynn's art collection of works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne and Matisse, and the Strip's first full-service Ferrari and Maserati dealership.
The resort also will have a new water-based entertainment production by Franco Dragone, who developed Bellagio's production of "O" and Treasure Island's "Mystere" shows. A 2,080-seat showroom is planned and entertainment production costs have been listed as a $24 million expense in
the prospectus.
The resort, which is expected to employ about 8,000 people, would also include 78,200 square feet of retail shopping space with brand-name, high-end boutiques, plus a 130,000-square-foot convention area.
Wynn said she and Steve were able to determine what mistakes could be avoided and improvements made in the design of Le Reve because they're using the same design group responsible for building The Mirage and Bellagio.
Some of the design challenges she identified include creating an intimate environment in a large-scale project and striking a balance between the classic luxury that appealed to the older, well-heeled customers and hip decor favored by people in their 20s and 30s.
Le Reve will achieve a more "intimate" feel than the typical megaresort by shrinking distances between the property's various features. In another break with convention, some of the outdoor attractions won't be visible from the Strip sidewalk, requiring customers to enter the resort in order to experience them,
Wynn said.
"We want to be able to control the total experience of our guests and let them benefit from all the special attractions of the hotel. The volcano eruptions outside The Mirage, the Bellagio fountain are all extensions of signs and best viewed from outside. But for
Le Reve, we want to be able to view wonderful things from the inside," she said. "Las Vegas (casinos) are also themed (to the point) of ad nauseam. It's time for us to go in a whole different direction," she said.
One other challenge is making Le Reve user-friendly, she said. "One of the things that struck us (in most casino designs) was how far apart everything was (in terms of access,)" she said. "If people are traversing long spaces ... you can condense that (space) by building up."
Despite expected changes to the tax environment brought on by the proposed gross receipts taxes, Wynn maintains that Nevada's tax policies are still pro-business because Nevada residents are still exempt from personal income taxes.
"So what worries us about doing business here? Transportation issues, the situation with the airlines, the cost of gasoline and terrorism," she said. "That's why we hired (former Metro sheriff) Jerry Keller as our security chief at Le Reve because we're living in a new age and Keller's background deals with protection of property and staff."
Meanwhile Sylvia Campbell, president and chief executive of the Southern Nevada chapter of the Better Business Bureau, said the number of general complaints filed with the bureau jumped to 7,000 in 2002 from 4,500 in 2001.
Campbell said this number is expected to rise to 8,000 this year because of growing consumer awareness of investment scams, the ease of online filing as well as an increase in the number of investment and charity-related scams in the wake of the economic downturn.
Campbell, who said the bureau has about 3,200 members in Las Vegas and has been gaining between 50 and 125 new business members each month over the past three years, identified surging incidents of identity theft and pyramid schemes as some of the bureau's
key concerns.