Theater/hotel/shopping complex coming to Pahrump

A new building project at Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club has Pahrump excited.

In May, the resort made it official that they would be building a new hotel, theater and shopping complex and much more on land next door to their racetrack complex at 3601 S. Highway 160. The new center would be on the main highway and open to the public. This comes after announcing in February that it was going to expand.

“The chamber is very excited because if we can get over this movie theater hurdle which has been going on since 2003,” Chris Erwin, chief executive officer of the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce said. “I would just love to have a movie theater and not have to go to Las Vegas and see a movie.”

On the new hotel coming in, Erwin said that was also a huge plus.

“For the Fall Festival, we are already maxing out in lodging and to solve that we need new hotels,” he said. “I feel this will help us out. How cool is it to have a movie theater, maybe a restaurant and a hotel, it’s a winning combination.”

A Spring Mountain official said that the project is at the ground level and that the facility is looking for a developer.

“We are looking for the right partner that wants to build it all,” Todd Crutcher, director of marketing for Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club said. “It will be a premium development with the right stores, right restaurants. We are also looking at a movie theater.”

A gift to the town

People in the town might be skeptical and think that this project would be built just for the guests of Spring Mountain, but Crutcher wanted Pahrump to know that the project will be built outside the gates of the resort and will be open to the public. He said this was a gift from Spring Mountain CEO John Morris to the community and that Morris knew how much the town needed a theater.

“Who’s to say that Morris is not Santa Claus,” Crutcher said.

In addition, a new 15-mile racetrack could also be added to the complex.

“John Morris wants to have the longest professional racetrack in the world, which is currently held by the 13.1 mile Nurburgring Grand Prix racetrack in Nurburg, Germany,” Crutcher said.

“Our track should be 15 miles-plus, but this is something on our want list, we would still need to purchase the land for this from BLM,” he said in reference to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The track is also looking into a six-mile offroad course too, which is also dependent on the track buying land from BLM, Crutcher said.

Time frame, need for new hotel

“Our water and sewer plant should be going in at the end of the year,” Crutcher said. “So we are looking at a two-year time period for the hotel/theater/shopping area.”

Crutcher said the needs of the track brought the hotel into motion.

Spring Mountain is growing and business is booming. “We are in high demand,” Crutcher said. “If someone wanted to rent out our track they would have to do it six months to a year in advance.”

He said that similar places have classes only on the weekends with nothing during the week, and that’s not what is happening at Spring Mountain.

“At the end of the day we don’t have enough rooms,” he said. “We can bring bigger programs into here but right now we can’t because we don’t have enough hotels in this area.

“We can do larger car events, larger race events. There are things we could do, but that starts with hotels.”

He also added that he felt the town is in need of better places to stay.

“There is definitely a need for it,” Crutcher said. “We have a high-end product and we have high-end customers. And they need a high-end place to stay. It doesn’t need to be the Taj Mahal.

“Right now, the Holiday Inn is a really nice place,” he said, referring to the Holiday Inn Express &Suites in Pahrump. “It is clean and everyone loves it. You can argue that the rest of the town has to raise their standards. People just need a nice room to stay in.”

Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com