The stance is typical for Steven Johnson, longtime real-estate developer, who, for the past several decades, has quietly negotiated land deals in Arizona and around the Southwest.
Most recently, Johnson, 58, bought three adjacent parcels at the northeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue through his company Aspen Highlands Holdings LLC, according to Clark County land records.
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The sale, which the Associated Press first reported on Friday, was recorded by the Clark County's Assessor's Office on Sept. 7, the documents show.
Johnson told The Arizona Republic on Friday in a telephone interview that he is at least a month from finalizing his plans for the site, which is across from a multibillion-dollar resort that MGM Mirage Inc., Kerzner International Holdings Ltd. and Dubai World are planning.
"I'm in the design (process) right now, and I'll be finished in another 30 to 45 days," Johnson said from Las Vegas. "I have a lot of options. "It is entitled for a casino. I would imagine there would be some kind of gaming on the properties."
The property, the former site of the Holy Cow Casino, Cafe and Brewery, was to be turned into an Ivana Trump condo tower, but plans for that project ended.
Johnson's company, which is registered as a limited liability corporation in Colorado, bought the property from Rinkai America Inc., a Nevada corporation.
Johnson said he expects that by the end of 2009 his project will be 75 percent complete.
The purchase is the latest of several transactions Johnson has conducted in Las Vegas and elsewhere.
Much of the property he has purchased in Las Vegas has been turned into Walgreens drugstores, including one on the Las Vegas Strip near the MGM Grand hotel-casino and another at the corner of Charleston and Las Vegas boulevards. Both deals were made with a partner, James Peterson of Albuquerque.
In April 2003, the partners also paid the LeWinter family $32.5 million for the former Rosewood Grille on the Strip, a restaurant that had been there since the 1950s.
The 0.64-acre parcel, between the Venetian and the under-construction Palazzo casino-resort, is being rebuilt to become another Walgreens. Johnson and Peterson leased the site to Walgreen Co., as well as six floors of retail space above it to Venetian owner Las Vegas Sands Corp., which also bought the airspace above that for a future high-rise condominium, for undisclosed terms.
The price per acre of the plot, at more than $50 million, well exceeds what was considered to be a high-water mark set in May when Elad Group agreed to pay $1.2 billion to New Frontier hotel-casino owner Phil Ruffin for a plot on the Strip at around $35 million per acre.
Johnson said he thought the purchase would make money: "I hope so."
Locally, Johnson said, he has developed about 10 sites into Walgreen's locations, all of which he said he sold mostly to individual investors.
Johnson, who has lived in Arizona for 12 years, said he currently owns land at the southeastern corner of Florence Boulevard and Interstate 10 in Casa Grande, across from Westcor's 1 million-square-foot Promenade mall, which is set to open next month.
He said he is developing that land into a Walgreens and other shops.
Earlier this year, Johnson's company sold about 50 acres of vacant land at the southeastern corner of Val Vista Drive and Williams Field Road in Gilbert to a Massachusetts company for $28 million, according to Maricopa County records. The buyer is developing the site into an office/retail complex.
This article contains material from the Associated Press.