Edge Acquires Las Ramblas Land for $202M

"Everybody has been real excited about the Harmon Corridor and [this acquisition] gives us the ability to control the experience there," Edge Group president Adam Frank tells GlobeSt.com. "We believe to create a great experience you really have to master plan whole area to give it an identity and a character while still having enough breadth of product to appeal to different segments of the market."

The plan is to complement W Las Vegas by developing the site with a large central casino and retail hub surrounded by a number of different hotel brands that spill into the hub. In addition, Frank says the master plan will include pedestrian connections between the two developments and possibly with the Hard Rock as well, which Peter Morton is in the process of selling to Morgan's Hotel Group. The project likely will get under way before W Las Vegas is complete, Frank says.

The now defunct Las Ramblas project by Related Las Vegas and Centra Properties was approved for 4,400 hotel, condo and condo-hotel units in 11 high-rise towers, a 40,000-sf casino, shops, a spa and various eateries. The developers cited rising construction costs and slowing sales as reasons for selling the site. Centra reportedly spent $85 million or $3.6 million per acre assembling the various parcels of land that included the 996-unit Harbor Island apartments 56 additional fourplex units.

Edge Group paid $8 million an acre for the property, which it put under contract several months ago. "We believe in the current market it is worth considerably more than that," says Frank. "There are comps coming out that will support a lot higher valuation, and that's in this market; when the Harmon Corridor is built out in four years, the pricing will be very much like the Strip," where land has been selling for between $20 million and $24 million an acre.

Related has struck out three times in Las Vegas. In October, 10 months after the City of Las Vegas selected Related to be the master developer of the 61-acre Union park property, the deal was called off. In January, Related cancelled its Icon Las Vegas project just east of the Strip on Convention Center Drive. Plans called for 514 luxury residential units in a pair of 48-story towers. As with Las Ramblas, in both cases Related blamed skyrocketing construction costs.