Lake Las Vegas Ritz-Carlton Set To Close
Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Real Estate Developments

More bad news out of the Lake Las Vegas development. We've been watching the resort area slowly implode since last June and now USA Today's Hotel Check-In says that the Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas will shut down at the start of May putting around 400 people out of work. The 348-room resort is owned by Village Hospitality, an arm of Deutsche Bank which has decided to case funding the hotel.
It's the latest blow to an area that has been hard hit in the recession. The resort destination, 17 miles away from the Las Vegas strip, features a manmade lake surrounded by an Italian-style village. It started off with grand fanfare as a quiet luxury alternative to the high-powered glitz of the Las Vegas strip. Real estate boomed and several different hotels settled in. But in the developer, Transcontinental Corp., lost the property in foreclosure after defaulting on $540 million in loans and the new owners of Lake Las Vegas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008. The Reflection Bay Golf Course at Lake Las Vegas closed last August leaving just one course, the private SouthShore course in Henderson, available for play. The Lake Las Vegas real estate market remains clogged with multimillion homes. The resort area faces many challenges including a still-slumping Las Vegas tourism market, a second home market that refuses to rebound and a water bill that runs into the millions jacking up the homeowners association fees.

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