The Las Vegas Planning Commission will consider the Harlem Nights Hotel and Casino project this week. The developer is proposing a 60-story, 687-foot-tall hotel and casino development with 764 hotel rooms and 458 multi-family residential units on 1.95 acres at the northwest corner of Jackson Avenue and F Street.

Project consultant Lisa Mayo-DeRiso said it would be a game changer for the community. “Create jobs, it creates housing, economic development for the Historic Westside which desperately needs it.”

The $700 million, 60-story project, would require a zoning change because current zoning only allows a maximum height of seven stories.

Approvals with conditions could be given by the planning commission but the question remains what those conditions would be and whether the developer would accept them.

“The ultimate goal is to build something wonderful,” Mayo-DeRiso said. “Of course, we would consider everything that’s put in front of us. If they say, ‘You have to go down some floors’, we’d consider that and look at that.”

Mayo De-Riso called it a holistic approach. She said they’re hoping to work with the city and the community to get through the variances. 

Manuela Williams has lived in the area for the past 17 years, and while she is excited about the opportunity, she said it’s a “bad” area. “The police have come to my house to subpoena me for my camera because they had a murder down the street, another lady died here,” Williams said. “It’s a pretty bad area, but if they built a casino, I would love it.”

The planning commission’s hearing is a preliminary step. The City Council has the final word, and it will not hear the project until May. Until then, Mayo-DeRiso said the developers will take the planning commission’s recommendations into account, meet with Councilman Cedric Crear, and do further preparation for the May meeting.