Big-time local developer Gary Goett is rejiggering his plans for a casino-hotel resort, situated at the junction of Las Vegas Boulevard and St. Rose Parkway, well south of the Strip. Budgeted at $750 million, Southern Highlands Casino-Resort is slated for a 2008 opening. However, there may less of it (at least at first) than originally announced.

Goett has informed Clark County of his intention to build 1,413 hotel rooms, not the 2,400 he once contemplated, and the hotel tower(s) will top out at 500 feet, not the approved 530. A planned shopping center has been pushed back to a later phase and probably be placed on another part of the site.

Pleading the steep grade of acreage land involved, Goett also apparently wants out of having to build the required "pedestrian realm" (what you and I call a "sidewalk"), arguing that there will be enough "pedestrian circulation" on I-15 and nearby frontage roads. That's a novel concept to me, but the county is going for it. It's already decided a pedestrian bridge into the project is unnecessary.

Goett also wants to scrap the requirement that he landscape the site in such a way as "to screen the large expanses of parking areas." I'm guessing Goett's probably not going to win any beautification awards on this project.

Not everything is going to "less of" this or that. The Tuscan theme will remain and a 100,000-square-foot casino will be upsized by another 20,000 feet (making it roughly two-thirds the size of the casino floor at the MGM Grand). Whether Goett's revised version of Southern Highlands Casino-Resort is a response to rising construction costs and a shrinking supply pool, or whether he wants to maximize the cash-cow portion of the resort first, rather than trying to do the whole project in one giant gulp, it would be difficult to argue that his second-thought version of Southern Highlands doesn't make an awful lot of sense.