After years of trying, Max Baer Jr. is this close to building his dream casino. He has the land, he has the zoning variances, he has approval from the county, he says he has the money, but there’s no way to know if that’s true. Everything is in place, and he should be ready to build. So why hasn’t he started yet? He’s still fighting over the sign.
He started by wanting a 200-foot tall oil derrick shooting flames as the sign the draw people to the casino. That was denied, so he scaled it down to 143 feet, the same height as the hotel towers. That was denied, so then he cut it down to “a 109-foot tulip-shaped sign”. The Planning Commission just denied that, too. The Commission says that the limit on signs is 30 feet, and that’s plenty. Jethro, apparently, just wants to keep chipping away until he can find a compromise. And since the process can take three to four months each time, it could be years before they finally hash out a number and get to building.
Also the article talks about how the sign face would be 2,423 square feet. That is an unfathomable number. That’s bigger than my house. I don’t think the casino in Las Vegas have signs that big.
I think it’s time to give in and just start building. He got 98% of what he wants for this project. Don’t worry about the sign. The draw is going to be the hotel building itself, perched on the hillside. A sign isn’t going to make too much difference. The time for talk is over. Now it’s time to put shovels in the dirt.
