Two decades ago, during Las Vegas’ wild real estate bubble, a group of developers wanted to build big near The Orleans.
They unveiled plans for a two-tower hotel-apartment complex with more than 1,000 units, a hibiscus-shaped pool, spa and salon and shops. It even called for three levels of skybridge suites built between the towers, “defying not only convention but the very laws of gravity,” marketing materials boasted.
Like so many other proposed high-rises from that era, the venture died on the drawing board and the land sat empty for years. But now a new development is taking shape on the site: a medical complex for the Culinary Union.
Construction crews are building a two-story, roughly 99,000-square-foot health care center on a nearly 10-acre site at the southwest corner of Tropicana Avenue and Cameron Street.
The facility, about 2 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip, will serve Culinary and Bartenders union members and their families, about 120,000 people in Southern Nevada, said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of Culinary Local 226.
Construction on the roughly $115 million project is expected to be complete by June, according to Ohio real estate firm ORG Portfolio Management, which is developing the complex for the owner.
Pappageorge confirmed in an interview that the union’s pension fund – called the Western Unite Here and Employers Pension Fund – owns the site. The Culinary Health Fund, which provides medical benefits and services to union members, is a tenant.
Close to work
The Culinary Health Center, as the complex is called, is intended to include primary care and pediatric care, mental health counseling, dental care, physical therapy, radiology and other services, the union has said.
It will not be open to the public.
The politically powerful culinary union represents workers at most hotel-casinos on the Strip and downtown. Its members include housekeepers, food and cocktail servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders and laundry workers.
The new project marks the fourth and final Culinary Health Center in the Las Vegas Valley, Pappageorge said.
He added that the other facilities — in the Southwest Valley, the East Valley and North Las Vegas — are close to where members live. The newest one is near the Strip, making it convenient for members to seek care while walking to and from work, he said.
According to Pappageorge, the health fund pays about $750 million in damages per year.
He said he was not aware of the high-rise project that was drawn up for the Tropicana site about 20 years ago. But he noted that there were “wild plans” all over the valley and almost all of them “disappeared”.
“Very few made it through because of the recession,” he said.
“Timing is everything”
During the mid-2000s, easy money led to a rapid rise in construction, home sales and property values in Southern Nevada. At the time, developers drew up plans for so many high-rises that people called it the “Manhattanization” of Las Vegas.
One such project was earmarked for the Tropicana site, which had been home to a Honda dealership.
The proposed complex, Pinnacle Las Vegas, was developed by the Falcon Group. Publicity materials described Pinnacle as an $850 million hotel project with two 36-story towers and plenty of amenities.
In 2006, the developers announced that they had secured the first level of project financing and that “pre-purchase reservations” were taking off at a brisk pace.
And in 2007, demolition crews cleared the site for the towering new project.
“You are witnessing another important milestone in bringing Pinnacle to life,” Pinnacle chief development officer Michael Bellon said at the time.
But the real estate market eventually crashed, the broader economy imploded, and Pinnacle was never built.
It was far from alone, as many other proposed mid-2000s high-rises never came to fruition either. In some cases, developers excavated the site but never built the project, leaving a giant hole in the ground.
Bellon told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2017 that lenders wanted his group to sell perhaps 55 percent of the units before releasing the first pot of funds.
His team found buyers for about 48 percent of the units, he said. But projects began to be canceled throughout Las Vegas, the economy collapsed, and Pinnacle’s developers lost their funding and scrapped the project.
Pinnacle would have been “an interesting place to live,” Bellon said. But, he added, “timing is everything.”
“Declaration of Undertaking”
In 2013, a New York investment firm acquired the property through foreclosure. It sold the site later that year for about $7.4 million to a California real estate company, property records show.
Clark County commissioners in 2017 approved plans for a five-story, 293-unit apartment complex on the site. It wasn’t built either.
Then, in 2018, property records indicate the Culinary Union pension fund acquired the site for $11.5 million.
In early 2024, the county board approved the plans for the medical complex, which is now under construction.
As outlined in a letter to county officials, the Culinary Health Fund would be the sole tenant.
“This population is the lifeblood of the hospitality and gaming industry in the Las Vegas region,” said the letter from Carpenter Sellers Del Gatto Architects.
Early last year, the Culinary Union held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the project and said the facility would open in 2026.
ORG Portfolio co-founder Jonathan Berns told the Review-Journal that his company built other culinary health care centers in Southern Nevada.
As he described it, the newest one was designed to have a dynamic feel.
“It’s a statement of commitment,” he said.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@ theplayerlounge.com or 702-383-0342.
