Waiver Extension On Tap for $3.9B Cosmopolitan

The 3,000-unit condo-hotel is under construction on a small lot between the Bellagio and the massive Citycenter development. Approximately 1,800 units are said to be under contract. The project went vertical in April 2008. Substantial completion, scheduled for late 2009 prior to the loan default, now is slated for mid-to-late 2010, with approximately $1 billion of work still to be done.

Deutsche Bank, the lender on the project, began foreclosure proceedings in January 2008 after Cosmo Senior Borrower LLC, the Ian Bruce Eichner entity that was the original owner and developer of the property, defaulted on its $760-million construction loan. In September, Nevada Property One LLC, an affiliate of Deutsche Bank, bought the resort out of foreclosure for about $1 billion, inked a "guaranteed maximum price contract" with Perini Corp. to complete construction and tapped Related Cos. to oversee the work. Perini has been working on the project from the beginning.

The project includes two high-rise condo-hotel towers with 2,999 condo-hotel units, 641,850 square feet of back-of-house area and 522,934 square feet of public areas above subterranean parking. The project was originally approved as a 53,-story, 2,400-unit resort hotel development in November 2004. In March 2005, the project's expansion to 2,699 units and conversion to a condominium-hotel development was approved. The county approved an expansion to 3,000 units in July 2005 and approved the associated commercial subdivision in September 2005. The waiver, a 32% reduction in the required parking from 5,029 spaces to 3,420 spaces, was approved in December 2005. The commercial subdivision was re-approved in October 2008, after Deutsche Bank bought the property out of foreclosure.