An agreement reached last month between an Israeli-owned real estate investment group and New Frontier owner Phil Ruffin is being called the most expensive transaction on the strip. Ruffin confirmed he has sold his 984-room New Frontier and the 36 acres on which it sits to Elad Properties for more than $1.2 billion.

Ruffin had been looking for a partner to help finance a redevelopment of his property into a 2,750-room, Swiss-themed resort. Those plans ended with the arrival of a $100 million deposit May 14.

“We’re under contract, and that means we’re doing the deal,” Ruffin said. “We’ve been successful with the property, but it got to a point where it was better to let someone else come in and redevelop the site.”

Sources close to the deal say Elad will close the aging casino when the transaction closes in 90 days. The property will then be demolished and Elad will build a replica of its New York landmark Plaza Hotel. Construction is expected to start in 2008 and end in 2011.

The deal does not include the seven acres on which Donald Trump is building the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Ironically, Trump once owned New York’s Plaza. Former wife Ivana ran it for him.

“Donald has already heard about the deal, and he was thrilled to death,” Ruffin said. “This is going to be a really good deal for the towers, and it will help them out tremendously.”

The more than $1.2 billion price tag values the New Frontier land at more than $33 million an acre, making it the most expensive large-site land transaction on the Strip.

By Greg Jones

Greg Jones is managing editor of Casino Connection Nevada, as well as associate editor of Global Gaming Business magazine.

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