VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: Holdout Apt. Proprietor Refused Steve Wynn Sale

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes new entries each Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday version. In the present day’s entry in our ongoing collection initially ran on Feb. 26, 2024. 

The web has made fashionable folks heroes of real-estate holdouts who arise for what’s proper within the face of company may. One of the vital well-known is Edith Macefield of Seattle, the little previous woman who refused to promote her household’s 108-year-old farmhouse to builders, forcing them to assemble their business constructing round it. (If that story sounds acquainted however you don’t know why, it impressed the 2009 Pixar film Up.)

Las Vegas has a David-and-Goliath story similar to that.

The Villa De Flores is the final low-rent condo advanced left on the Las Vegas Strip. (Picture: vintagelasvegas.com)

“In the course of the growth of The Mirage within the late Nineteen Eighties, the Villa de Flores proprietor refused to promote the property to developer Steve Wynn,” in line with historiclasvegasproject.com.

Solely, like a whole bunch of different tales instructed about Las Vegas, this one isn’t precisely true.

Landlord Locked

The 6/10ths-of-a-parcel lot at 3601 Vegas Plaza Drive, first bought by Blake Ruth in 1964, was bought to Mike Flores and his dad and mom for round $500K in 1974, in line with Clark County information. The brand new homeowners constructed the 36 dwellings on the lot that also stand at the moment.

The Villa De Flores is a cheaply made, two-story stucco field of 480-square-foot studios and 900-square-foot one-bedrooms. A whole lot of similar condo buildings nonetheless stand throughout the Southwest, the place their continued presence is often an indication of financial stress.

That’s now not the case with the neighborhood surrounding the Villa Del Flores.

The key condo advanced behind The Mirage and Treasure Island — positioned fewer than 50 yards from TI’s worker entrance — is one thing folks don’t often stumble throughout until they get misplaced exiting one of many resort’s parking tons.  (Picture: Google Earth)

In October 1986, on line casino mogul Steve Wynn bought the Castaways on line casino for $50 million and began shopping for up the land surrounding it.

A yr later, he started constructing The Mirage, whose $630 million price ticket made it the most costly resort ever. Wynn hadn’t bought all the encompassing land, nonetheless. And by the point he sought to construct his $430 million Treasure Island in The Mirage’s former parking zone in 1991, it was clear that the Villa De Flores stood smack in the best way of his imaginative and prescient.

However right here’s the factor: Flores at all times needed to promote his property to Wynn.

I really feel like [General George] Custer, I’ve been right here so lengthy,” he instructed KTNV-TV/Las Vegas in 1993. “I simply needed to retire and fade into the sundown. I’m nonetheless right here. So please, Steve Wynn, purchase the place … Please, I’m determined.”

And the rationale he was so determined by then was due to his personal greed. Whereas the parable would have you ever imagine that Flores, like Edith Macefield of Seattle, gained his battle, the reality is that he determined to play hardball with somebody very out of his league, and misplaced.

Very onerous.

Actual-life Pirate Battle

The Villa de Flores affords studio and one-bedroom flats beginning at $1,050 per 30 days. (Picture: KSNV-TV/Las Vegas)

Seeing the property as his lottery ticket, Flores demanded $6 million from Wynn, which was unreasonably excessive. On the time, the full assessed worth of the land and buildings was solely $291,870, in line with county information.

Wynn refused to be extorted however countered with a still-generous $2 million. And for those who’re questioning why the 2 males couldn’t simply meet within the center at $4 million, it’s as a result of they had been each very cussed.

In truth, after Flores rejected Wynn’s supply, the on line casino mogul centered his power on methods to retaliate towards Flores — a minimum of, in line with Flores.

Wynn might or might not have inspired Clark County to schedule roadwork in a fashion that lower off all visitors out and in of Villa De Flores, as Flores claimed. However he very purposefully located one thing throughout the road from the condo constructing that made tempers, amongst different issues, explode.

Three big tanks had been buried only some hundred toes from the Villa De Flores. They saved all of the propane vital for “Battle of Buccaneer Bay,” Treasure Island’s fiery free pirate present on the Strip.

In 1999, one of many tanks went up in flames. Miraculously, not one of the condo residents was injured within the blast or ensuing fireplace. It was dominated unintentional, although Flores known as it an “accident ready to occur.”

“Steve Wynn is to the good-neighbor coverage what Jeffrey Dahmer is to eating etiquette,” Flores stated round that point, in line with the Las Vegas Evaluate-Journal.

Spite Lodge

Las Vegas fireplace crews battle a 1999 fireplace throughout from the Villa De Flores flats in 1999. (Picture: KSNV-TV/Vegas)

In 1997, Flores fired the subsequent salvo in what had develop into a real-life pirate battle. He determined to public sale off the land beneath his property to the very best bidder.

Flores figured that the specter of situating a good wealthier, extra avowed Wynn enemy between his personal two mega-resorts would lastly power Wynn to return near or meet his $6 million demand.

However Flores’ plan backfired. Solely three entities registered for the public sale:   

Flores ended up outbidding Engelstad for his personal constructing at $3.5 million, turning into its sole proprietor.

Not sunk but, Flores subsequent introduced plans to redevelop the Villa De Flores right into a nine-story lodge and timeshare tower that will compete with each of its next-door neighbors. Many years later, Larry David would have referred to this as a “spite lodge.”

Wynn returned fireplace with a lawsuit claiming that the proposed lodge was too massive and would violate a number of constructing codes.

“He sued me, he sued my dad and mom, he sued my architect, he sued the county commissioners,” Flores instructed KSNV on the time. “I feel he sued my cat and my mother-in-law.”

Goliath Strikes On

Edith Macefield’s 124-year-old household farmhouse, the place she died of most cancers in 2008 at 86 years previous, now sits between an LA Health and a Ross clothes retailer in Seattle. (Picture: amusingplanet.com)

Flores by no means obtained to construct his spite lodge, and by 2000, Wynn misplaced curiosity in making life depressing for him. That’s as a result of he had already bought The Mirage and Treasure Island for $4.4 billion to the corporate that turned at the moment’s MGM Resorts.

Wynn used his windfall to purchase the Desert Inn for $270 million, knock that down, and construct the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas — as soon as once more, the most costly resort ever — as an alternative.

Flores lastly bought the Villa De Flores in 2004, however to not MGM. He obtained $3.8 million from real-estate investor Kevin Golshan of LA.

Three years later, Golshan flipped it for simply north of Flores’ unique dream worth: $6.5 million. The customer was Henderson, Nev. resident Ray Koroghli, who at the moment nonetheless owns the property.  

Neither the tribe nor Koroghli returned On line casino.org’s emails and voicemails asking about their plans for the key condo advanced.

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