Commercial project takes shape at Spring Mountain Motor Resort.

Valley Electric Association has completed work that makes way for a commercial project at the Spring Mountain Motor Resort.

Valley Electric announced on its Facebook page at the end of September that work had been completed on moving three 75-foot power poles, each weighing around 12,000 pounds, at Spring Mountain.

“The movement of the poles paves the way for the construction on the new Silverton Hotel and Casino project to start,” the post stated.

As one project closes, another is about to begin.

Spring Mountain stated construction will start in December on a casino-hotel project, according to Valley’s social media post.

Silverton owner Ed Roski, the billionaire chairman of Majestic Realty Co., is in the works to develop a five-story, 125-room hotel on land near the front gates of Spring Mountain. Attached to the hotel will be a Silverton-branded casino.

Documents with the Nye County Recorder’s Office show a sale of nearly eight acres, a portion of an almost 22-acre parcel, being sold at a cost of nearly $3.8 million to Majestic in July.

A restaurant and retail shops are also planned for the first phase of the project, according to a newsletter from Spring Mountain.

Longest track in the world

The commercial project is only part of the expansion happening or planned at the racetrack.

Ownership at Spring Mountain has been working to acquire more than 600 acres of land adjacent to the racetrack to expand on its 6.1-mile-long track. The land is currently held by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

In July, the BLM announced the opening of a 45-day public comment period; that closed in September. According to that announcement, the sale of the land would be done through a competitive bidding process with one parcel being bid on in January of 2019. The second sale would occur in the summer of 2019.

Co-owner and CEO of Spring Mountain Resort John Morris told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the he expects to pay around $1.5 million for the land that sits north and east of the current track.

Morris purchased the then-2.2-mile-track in 2004 with his brother-in-law, Brad Rambo.

Morris has grown the track by three times since that time and is looking to grow it to more than 15 miles in length, which would make it the longest track in the world. That would make it longer than the famed 13.1-mile long Nurburgring Grand Prix in Nurburg, Germany, which is the longest track currently.

Contact reporter Jeffrey Meehan at jmeehan@pvtimes.com