Nevada Briefs - April 2004

Nevada Briefs

Casino Giants Ink $1.3 Billion Merger

Boyd Gaming Corporation and Coast Casinos, Inc. have announced a merger agreement in which Coast will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boyd Gaming, and will be run by Coast management as a separate operating unit. Coast shareholders will receive approximately $495 million in cash, and Boyd will issue approximately 19.4 million shares to Coast shareholders valued at approximately $325 million. In addition, Boyd will assume approximately $460 million of Coast debt. The combination will create one of the most diversified casino companies in the country, with 17 casino facilities, Boyd’s pending acquisition of Harrah’s Shreveport, and Coast’s development of South Coast, currently under construction south of Las Vegas. Boyd’s Sam’s Town property will join Coast’s properties – Gold Coast, Suncoast and the Orleans – in the Las Vegas locals’ sector and the combined company will be have two properties on the Strip: Coast’s Barbary Coast and Boyd’s Stardust. The transaction is expected to be completed upon receipt of shareholder and regulatory approvals, which are expected to be completed by mid-2004.

Power Plant Discussed for Ely

White Pine County Commissioners have approved an interim development agreement with a St. Louis company that wants to build a coal-fired power generation plant near Ely. White Pine Energy Associates, a subsidiary of privately-owned LS Power Associates, plans to build a plant with an initial capacity of 500 to 800 megawatts of power, which could eventually expand to 1,600 megawatts. Cost of the project is estimated between $600 million and $1 billion. The agreement with the county allows the company a two-year period to get approvals and permits, sign up potential customers for its power and arrange for transmission facilities. If it decides to continue with the project after the agreement expires, it would then have four years to construct the plant, which will employ about 100 workers. Potential customers for the power would be utilities, municipalities and cooperatives in Nevada and Utah.

One Hospital Opens, Another Breaks Ground

In fast-growing Southern Nevada, ground was broken for a new hospital just two weeks before another medical facility officially opened its doors. St. Rose Dominican Hospitals started work on their third Southern Nevada acute-care facility in February, to be called the San Martin campus. Located on a 30-acre site south of I-215 near Durango, the $137 million, four-story hospital will feature 110 private rooms, with an additional 90 rooms planned for future expansion. Completion is scheduled for 2006. Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center opened its doors to patients on March 1. Constructed by the Sunrise Healthcare System, the $140 million, 279,000-square-foot community hospital is located on 40 acres west of I-215 at Sunset Road. The 130-bed hospital will concentrate on four core areas: a 30-bed emergency department, ob/gyn services, diagnostic imaging and surgical services. An adjacent medical office building is connected to the hospital, offering direct access for physicians.

Northern Colleges Receive Nursing Grant

Three Northern Nevada colleges – Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC), Western Nevada Community College and Great Basin College – were recently awarded a $750,000 federal grant to fund a program to ease the shortage of trained nurses in Nevada, which continues to rank last in the nation in nurse-to-population ratio. The 2003 Legislature mandated the University and Community College System of Nevada double the number of graduates from all nursing programs statewide by 2006-2007, and this grant provides funding for a fast-track pilot project to help meet that goal. "TMCC students can complete the fast-track associate degree program in 16 months, compared to the two to three years it can take to complete the prerequisites and core requirements of a traditional associate’s degree," said Dr. Jowel Laguerre, TMCC vice president for academic affairs. "Our first groups of students will begin the fast-track program in May 2004." To complete the fast-track program, students attend college year-round, including the summer semester.

Nevada Has Top Cities for Business

Two Nevada cities received high marks in the March 2004 issue of Inc. Magazine in an article entitled "Top Cities for Doing Business in America." Reno ranked sixth out of 89 mid-size cities and Las Vegas was third among large cities. The selection process used employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1993 to 2003. Cities in the "mid-sized" category had a job base between 150,000 and 450,000 people, and large cities had a job base of more than 450,000. Cities that ranked highest showed a combination of new job growth, economic expansion, business-friendly tax and regulatory climate and diversified economies. While neither city ranked high in economic diversification, this was offset by other factors, including Nevada’s unusually high growth rate. Las Vegas ranked fifth in the nation among large cities for "Fastest, Most Sustained Growth" and Reno ranked 22nd among mid-sized cities.