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A Lad Mag and a Brand in Las Vegas

A Maxim named Las Vegas Strip Hotel and Casino coming soon to Vegas. The raucous men’s magazine, has never been shy about putting its name out there.

Maxim’s parent company, Dennis Publishing, is expected to announce that it has signed a deal with a real estate developer, Concord Wilshire Partners, to build the Las Vegas Maxim Hotel and Casino, a $1.2 billion destination hotel with 2,300 rooms and a 60,000-square-foot casino that is to open in 2010.

All the accouterments of any self-respecting new hotel on the Strip will be on hand: a luxury spa, high-end retailers, celebrity chefs, lots of conference space. Then, the connections with Dennis Publishing will be added. Maxim Lounge, a collaboration with the nightlife impresarios Rande and Scott Gerber, will have a club in the hotel. And the company’s music magazine, Blender, will get top billing on the outdoor and indoor concert spaces.

Stephen Colvin, president and chief executive of Dennis Publishing U.S., said, “Vegas has always been — and is increasingly becoming more so — a natural home for an entertainment brand targeted at a young audience.”

Maxim’s mixture of scantily clad B-list starlets, college-fraternity humor and useful information on gadgets, clothes and other preoccupations of young, affluent men has proved to be a publishing sensation since its British-based owner brought the magazine here in 1997. Its paid circulation has surpassed 2.5 million, dwarfing traditional men’s publications like GQ and Esquire, and its formula has spawned a posse of competing “lad” magazines.

Over the last couple of years, the brand has been placed on a growing number of products — duvet bedding, home office and entertainment furniture, even hair-frosting dye — all seeking to embody the spirit of the fun-loving Maxim man.

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Town Square Las Vegas Real Estate

A lifestyle shopping destination for locals and tourists alike to converge and engage in every diversion imaginable: Window-shopping. Book-browsing. Menu-reading. Theatre-going. People-watching. Coffee-sipping. Bird-feeding. Dog-walking. Blind-dating. Baby-strolling. Business-lunching. Fountain-gazing. Weight-lifting. Deal-making. Bench-sharing. Hand-holding. Day-dreaming. And so much more.

Conveniently located on the lauded and legendary Las Vegas Strip at the intersection of Interstate 15 and 215, with over 400,000 vehicles passing the site each day, Town Square will grace more than 1.5 million square feet. A broad array of retail shops, restaurants and entertainments venues will populate Town Square real estate, including a 90,000 square foot Rave Motion Picture multiplex cinema, 200,000 square feet of prime office space and a 229-room hotel.

Construction began recently, by Turnberry Associates, and opening is projected for spring 2007.

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Bluegreen Corporation, a leading provider of Colorful Places to Live and Play(R), announced it has purchased approximately 10 acres of Las Vegas land near the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Paradise Road where it plans to build a new resort, preview center and retail complex. The company plans to begin construction of this new Las Vegas resort property and open its initial timeshare sales operations in during the third quarter of 2006.

“Establishing a presence in a mega-market like Las Vegas is a key strategic growth initiative for Bluegreen Resorts,” noted George F. Donovan, president and chief executive officer of Bluegreen. “Las Vegas attracts approximately 43 million visitors a year and is one of the top three prime western markets for timeshare sales. We are confident that the introduction of Bluegreen Resorts into Las Vegas will allow us to reach a broader pool of potential Bluegreen owners. At the same time, this project reflects our continued commitment to serving our current customer base by providing access to one of the nation’s popular and sought after vacation destinations.”

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Top 2% of Luxury Real Estate Market Still Selling

Despite growing indications of a cooling housing market, one niche continues to sell briskly, luxury multimillion-dollar luxury Las Vegas homes sales including the Las Vegas luxury real estate market.

Over the past few months in the overall U.S. real-estate market, more homes have crowded the market and sales volumes have fallen. Yet one area of the market appears immune to all that: In many locations, including Las Vegas real estate, homes on the luxury end of the price scale — those costing $3 million and up — have been selling in increasing numbers.

In San Francisco, 18 homes in that range sold in the first quarter, up from 15 in the same period last year, according to real-estate information service DataQuick. In Jackson, Wyo., that number rose to 21 homes from 17, according to Jackson Hole Real Estate and Appraisal. Higher up the scale, 10 homes at $5 million or more in Palm Beach, Fla., sold in the first quarter, up from eight last year, says the county assessor’s office.

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