Government considering purchase of hotel-casino

BOULDER CITY - The federal government wants to buy and close a hotel-casino near Hoover Dam with money earmarked for the purchase of environmentally sensitive lands, and the owners say they might be willing to sell.

The Hacienda hotel-casino on U.S. 93 is one of 33 parcels listed by the federal Bureau of Land Management for a fifth round of land purchases under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998.

The property is "within a congressionally designated unit set aside for environmental and recreation uses," said Jim Holland, park planner for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

It is also in habitat used by sensitive species including the desert tortoise and bighorn sheep, Holland said.

The BLM estimates the cost of the Hacienda property at $20 million, based on the owners' asking price plus the projected cost of appraisals, surveys and environmental studies.

Dave Belding, co-owner of the 17-floor, 375-room hotel-casino, said he and his partners began to consider selling the Hacienda more than a year ago. He said they decided the National Park Service could have the first chance to buy because of the hotel's long relationship with the agency.

Belding said business proposals also include keeping the hotel-casino, converting it to a residential neighborhood or making it a high-rise timeshare.

The Hacienda is on 37 acres within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area managed by the Park Service. Holland said the federal government has wanted for many years to buy the site.

The hotel-casino is on the BLM's proposed list for lands to be purchased with money raised by the auction of federal land around Las Vegas. The list includes nearly 37,900 acres valued at approximately $94.4 million, mostly in northern Nevada.

Holland said that if the Park Service buys the Hacienda, it will no longer be a hotel-casino. A study of the site's potential other uses should be completed in about six months, he said.

One option is to clear the buildings and return the site to what it looked like before a mining claim was filed on the land and 80 surrounding acres a century ago.

A more likely scenario, Holland said, is for the government to use some buildings for operations associated with the recreation area and Hoover Dam.