Time for the jury

Two carefully watched cases head to the jury today. O.J. Simpson's case has obviously gotten most of the national media's attention. But as Steve Friess and others have pointed out, what may matter more to Vegas in the long run is another case: Plaza vs. Plaza.  You see, as the Buffet reported, back in 2007 Phil Ruffin abandoned plans to build a new casino to replace his New Frontier. Instead he sold the land to the Elad Group, owners of New York's Plaza Hotel. This sale of course was during the real estate boom in Vegas and the purchase was among the highest amount ever paid for Strip acreage ($1.2 billion for 34.5 acres).

Elad Group immediately set about planning to tear down the New Frontier and swiftly replace the veteran property with a replica of New York's Plaza Hotel.  Unlike the Strip's shrunken mimicries of New York City, Paris and Venice, the Vegas version of New York's Plaza would be distinguished from the original by being far larger. At an estimated cost of $5 billion, the Elad's Strip Plaza was to have thousands of rooms whereas the original hotel in New York only had hundreds.

Much about this purchase, from the record amount paid for the land to the speed with which Elad felt it could demolish the New Frontier and have its new Plaza open as early as 2011, suggested to Vegas watchers a certain inexperience with the market on the part of the Strip's latest big players. Perhaps in no area was this more hinted at than Elad's seeming failure to consider fully that downtown Las Vegas already had a casino named Plaza.

Anyway, the legal fight over who has the rights to the name "Plaza" for a casino/hotel in the Vegas area will along with Simpson be placed in the hands of a jury at the Regional Justice Center starting today.

One sad irony of the Plaza  case is the fact that due to the credit crunch the construction of the Plaza has been delayed; but that happened after the much-in-need-of-renovation-but-revenue-generating New Frontier was imploded.

Also, the downtown Plaza's owners are trying to argue that Elad owes them more than $29 million in lost profits because their own renovations  were delayed, not because of the bad economy, but on account of the name controversy.