Las Vegas Weekly

July 30, 2008 · 8:56 AM

No Idaho resort for Graff-Agassi; banks run “late” with City Center funding

By Robin Leach

Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf are ditching plans for a resort in Idaho.

Photo: R&R

The troubled near-recession economy is shaking up business dealings almost everywhere you turn. Latest financial flounderings even affect a hotel resort project that Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff planned in Idaho -- and final funding for the ambitious City Center project that MGM Mirage and Dubai World is constructing right at the heart of the Strip is now “running late.”

Luxe Life broke the news many months ago that Andre and Steffi were investors in a planned lakefront resort In Donnelly, Idaho, some 100 miles from Boise. They planned to partner with the Fairmont Hotel group from Toronto. We showed the Tamarack Resort brochures featuring its golf and ski attractions, but now the actual owners -– Jean-Pierre Boesplflug and Alfredo Afif -- have been sued by the Credit Suisse bank, causing Andre and Steffi’s investment group to terminate their portion of the funding. Demand for luxury Rocky Mountain properties has fallen drastically and construction halted on the nearby village to Tamarack.

Yesterday (Tuesday) our Wall Street sources revealed that the MGM Mirage/Dubai World partnership for City Center is “late” in funding by as much as $3.5 billion of the $11.2 billion now budgeted for CityCenter. Finance officers at the hotel resort group had told shareholders in May that the funding was due by the end of June. However, that apparently has not happened and the original advisor banks to Dubai, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, apparently are holding back on further investments -– all because of massive amounts of casino debt they already hold both here in Vegas and in other American gaming cities. That funding was supposed to be completed by the end of June.

Deutsche Bank is already paying out the completion construction costs of the neighboring Cosmopolitan complex while simultaneously trying to find a buyer or another hotel group to take it over. An MGM Mirage spokesman released the following statement: “This final piece of our project financing for CityCenter is certainly taking more time that we had anticipated, but we’re not rushing just to get a deal done. We are receiving significant support and continue our discussions. Both MGM Mirage and Dubai World have the financial wherewithal to finish this project. Most importantly, no one should be mistaken into thinking this has any impact on our project schedule. CityCenter is on schedule to open fourth quarter of 2009."

Meantime, in May Vegas casino revenue fell for the fifth consecutive month, by 16 percent. The only silver lining in these dark storm clouds of bad news is that the penthouse in Andrew Sassoon’s Light Group Harmon Hotel sold for more than $2,400 per square food -- an all-time record for a Vegas residence.

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