By ALAN SNEL
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Prominent Las Vegas real estate broker David Atwell, who brokered some of the biggest land deals on the Strip, has died from cancer. He was 63.
Atwell, president of Resort Properties of America and a Las Vegas resident since 1955, reportedly died from throat and lung cancer Monday.
His family moved from San Francisco and became a prominent player in the Las Vegas hotel and real estate industry. His father was Cecil Atwell, an early pioneer in Las Vegas hotel land deals who died in 1998.
A 1974 graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Atwell entered the real estate business with McKellar Realty/Development.
In 1979, he founded his private brokerage, Resort Properties of America, specializing in motel/hotel/casino property transactions, according to his company’s website.
He was known for assembling the land to create The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in 1979, the website said.
Atwell handled big deals, such as the sale of the Dunes hotel-casino.
In 2007, Atwell initiated the $1.2 billion sale of the New Frontier hotel-casino to the Elad Group of New York.
Atwell is survived by his wife, Aletha, and four children, Heather, Aubrianna and twins Chelsea and Taylor. Aubrianna posted a photo of her father on Facebook, where friends expressed condolences.
Family friend Sue Lowden, a former state senator and current candidate for lieutenant governor, said she recalled receiving Christmas cards from Atwell and his family. ‘He was a devout family man,’ Lowden said.
Atwell’s company brokered dozens of hotel-casino land deals. They included a 59-acre package for Harrah’s hotel-casino in Laughlin in 1986, 165 acres on the Strip for the Dunes in 1988, four acres on the Strip for the Casino Royale hotel-casino in 1992, Joker’s Wild in Henderson in 1993, Main Street Station in 1993, and the 4 Queens in downtown Las Vegas in 2003.