The development site is located at East Flamingo Road and Swenson Street, adjacent to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and 1.5 miles from both the Las Vegas Strip and the Las Vegas Convention Center. The seller is Lehman Bros., which gained control of the project in October at auction for $55 million after developer Del American defaulted on its development loan, according to county property records. The outstanding balance on the loan stood at between $90 million and $100 million, one local source tells GlobeSt.com.
Earlier this year, Lehman retained the local office of CB Richard Ellis to liquidate the asset, which CBRE began marketing in April. The marketing brochure does not list an offering price for the building nearing completion, Bella Venezia I, but says $72 million will have been spent to complete it. The units average 1,290 sf and the parking ratio is approximately two per unit. The offer price for remaining land and entitlements is $44 million ($2.75 million per acre), a big discount to its year-old appraised value of $72.5 million ($4.55 million per acre) and approximately $10 million more than was spent to acquire it and prepare it for development.
The listing brokers are Geoffrey West, Jeff Swinger, Spence Ballif, John Knott and Michael Parks. West tells GlobeSt.com that despite the entitlements the property will support a variety of uses including luxury apartments or timeshare units--likely results for the building nearing completion because it was originally intended to be condos and has higher-end finishes. Beyond that, the site could support a non-gaming hotel or resort, or, due to its location next to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, student housing. In the longer term, condos may again become a viable play for the property, West says.
"We have had very strong response from major timeshare developers, major condo developers and a lot of players on the multifamily side," West says. "No [condominium] units were ever sold so the buyer will have a clean slate, a blank canvass with which to work."
The property is expected to be under contract by the end of June. The sale is expected to close sometime in the fourth quarter.
Del American chief executive Christopher Del Guidice acquired the property from Nevada Power in May 2003 for about $4 million, a price reflective of the fact that it was raw land that would require some $35 million more for flood control, streets and utilities. In 2004, Del American received a $240-million development financing commitment from Lehman Bros. and Hypo Real Estate Capital Corp. for Vegas Grand.
At one time Del American said that 90% of the units had been reserved. Later, the company canceled all reservations and raised prices, prompting a class-action lawsuit that was settled in 2006 when Del agreed to pay 2.5% of future gross sales into a common fund for several hundred people who had reserved a unit, according to published reports at the time that cited court documents.
The Vegas Grand site was not the only Vegas property Del American lost last year. At the end of 2004, Guidice paid $50 million for a 10-acre parcel at West Flamingo and Hugh Hefner Dr.--next to the Palms hotel and casino--with plans for a $500-million, 50-story, 542-unit luxury condo development. It also defaulted on that loan, which had about $82 million outstanding, and the property was sold at auction in February 2007 to the lender for $65 million, according to property records.
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