Plans have been filed for a 47-story hotel-casino in Union Park. If it's built, it would be the first new casino downtown since 1979.

 

Construction is not imminent because the developer, Forest City, must build a new city hall before it gets access to the 6.4-acre parcel in Union Park where the casino would go.

 

The new city hall, however, faces a challenge at the ballot box later this year, and a powerful local union and candidates for the Las Vegas City Council are saying that a new municipal building is too risky a project to take on when the economy is in the dumps.

 

A Forest City spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment today. Next week, the City Council is scheduled to consider a zoning change for the Union Park parcel, the proposed building's height and a site plan.

 

The new resort would be 1.6 million square feet, with 120,000 square feet of casino space and 1,000 hotel rooms, as well as a restaurant, meeting rooms, and a spa and health club. A city fire station also would be on the site.

 

The casino is part of a glittering and complicated pitch that Mayor Oscar Goodman makes frequently about downtown. After Forest City, with co-developer LiveWork Las Vegas, builds the new city hall at the corner of First Street and Clark Avenue, he has said, it will swap the land underneath it for the Union Park parcel, which is city-owned.

 

"They build it, they do the swap, they do the casino," said city spokesman Jace Radke.

 

The blocks around the new city hall are planned for office development. The current city hall site would be joined with 12 city-owned acres across the street from the current City Hall for further commercial development.

 

That, along with the new casino and other planned downtown projects, would bring in revenue to pay for the new city hall while creating more than 13,000 jobs, Goodman has said repeatedly.

 

The debt incurred for building a new city hall has been estimated to be $150 million to $267 million.

 

Chris Bohner, research director for Culinary Local 226, said the city should simply sell the Union Park land to a developer and forgo the new city hall.

 

"There's no reason whatsoever that they can't sell that land right now and get cash into a budget that is in deficit," he said. "We reject the premise that you have to build a brand-new city hall to have a new casino downtown."

 

The union has filed two ballot measures related to the new city hall. One would require voter approval of "lease-purchase" financing agreements for city projects, thus challenging the financing method being considered for the new city hall.

 

The other asks voters to say yea or nay to the current redevelopment plan, which offers incentives to development in blighted areas.

Union officials have said the city shouldn't be pursuing an expensive project at a time when many basic public services are being reduced or eliminated.

 

Goodman's response is that the union's real agenda is getting the council to pressure the developer into labor contract talks.

The mayor said he thinks the project is protected from any kind of ballot challenge because a de facto contract exists with the developer.

 

City officials hope that city hall construction will start this year.

 

Though there have many expansions, remodels, and re-namings in the last three decades, the last new casino to open downtown was Sundance in 1979, according to a time line compiled by the Architecture Studies Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

 

It was renamed Fitzgeralds in 1987.

As reported by The Oklahoman: "About one-third of state money earmarked for helping problem gamblers is going unused, although treatment advocates insist it's not because of the lack of compulsive gamblers. The problem, they say, is a need for more public awareness.

 

"Meanwhile, there are 110 casinos in Oklahoma, and the payouts for the state lottery have gotten more lucrative. In Louisiana and other states with casinos, the gambling help line must be placed on their billboards.

 

"'The roadsides are inundated with casino billboards. And you know how many billboards we have in Oklahoma with the gambling help line number? — not one,' said Wiley Harwell, executive director of the Oklahoma Association for Problem and Compulsive Gambling.

 

"The statewide advocacy organization contracts with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to maintain a 24-hour help line, offer community education and promote counseling services. The state spent $143,000 in 2008 to promote awareness about gambling addiction and treatment.

 

"Harwell said casinos are the only sure place to find information about treatment. By law, casinos must have the information available, he said.

 

"Last fiscal year, 245 Oklahomans sought help through one of the 12 certified gambling treatment providers contracted with the state..."

While the recession is fueling price wars in Las Vegas, an Atlantic City casino has bigger problems due in large part to the depressed economy.

 

The New Jersey Casino Control Commission pulled the Tropicana's gaming license in December 2007, saying its owners, who also own the Tropicana in Las Vegas, were unfit to run a casino. Over the past year, the state has attempted to sell the casino to the highest bidder, as required by law.

 

The process has been an instructive example of Murphy's law, affecting regulators, potential bidders and former owner Tropicana Entertainment, which has been fighting to regain control of the casino for more than a year.

 

This unprecedented regulatory decision, coupled with an unprecedented downturn, has created problems for trustee Gary Stein, the retired New Jersey Supreme Court justice who has been overseeing the sale.

 

Last summer, amid souring business and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Tropicana Entertainment, Stein rejected all bids for the property as too low and got the go-ahead to start over.

 

A couple of promising bids at $850 million and $950 million came in before the market meltdown. After the dust settled, Cordish Co., a Baltimore company that has developed malls and other tourist attractions, stuck in the game with a $700 million bid.

 

The process stalled when Tropicana Entertainment appealed the denial of its casino license. As expected, the New Jersey Supreme Court sided with the Casino Control Commission, citing regulatory violations and myriad management problems.

 

With earnings at the Tropicana continuing to slide, Cordish is now offering less money, though how much less is unknown.

 

Now the company's creditors have jumped into the fray.

 

Subordinated creditors — a group likely to get little, if anything, in a bankruptcy proceeding — want the property returned to Tropicana Entertainment to own and manage.

 

Senior creditors, which stand to get a lot of money from the sale, were initially in favor of the Cordish bid. As the purchase price has slipped with the economy, they are now protesting the sale.

 

This group was responsible for booting former Chief Executive Bill Yung and now, in an attempt to protect its economic interests, finds itself on the same side as management.

 

With all new executives and, for the first time, an independent board of directors, Tropicana Entertainment hopes it can persuade regulators to let it take back its Atlantic City casino, once the company's largest and most profitable asset.

 

"There's a lot more value in this property if we can get in there and manage it," said Scott Butera, who succeeded Yung as chief executive in June. Under a bankruptcy reorganization plan filed last month, Yung, who owned 100 percent of the company, forfeits his equity, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to senior lenders.

 

Regulators don't appear eager to reverse course even with Yung, who was ultimately to blame for the company's problems, no longer having any economic interest in the company.

 

Covering all the bases, the company has filed a petition for officials to determine whether it is in compliance with gaming regulations.

Regulators have an obligation to determine whether an operator is suitable to hold a license. What they do with the information is another question.

 

If investigators determine, as expected, that the company is in compliance, reborn with new and improved management, would regulators be obligated to return the license? That would contradict months of effort and state resources expended to accumulate a mountain of evidence and a determination that no court has yet to overturn.

 

It also seems, to a growing number of gaming industry onlookers, like the best course of action.