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Coming soon - $30 Billion of New Las vegas Hotels
Las vegas has been referred
to as one of the modern wonders of the world, and for good reason. Long gone are
the days when Vegas was a cheesy sleazy place full of casinos and endless Elvis
memorabilia. Today, Vegas is an ultra-modern party town that's rapidly going
upmarket, with more attractions per square mile than anywhere else on earth, and
hotels and casinos that simply take your breath away.las vegas packages
Even more
remarkable is the sheer scale of redevelopment that's going on within the 3. 5
miles of the Las vegas strip. More than $30 billion is being pumped in to
develop new mega hotels that make the existing ones look like sheds. If you've
never been to Vegas before, go now to catch a glimpse of the 20th Century Vegas
before the 21st Century comes rushing in.
The birth of Las
vegas
Las vegas as we know it today can trace its roots back to 1941,
when the El Rancho, the Strip's first hotel-casino, opened its doors. The
success of the El Rancho spurred the first building-boom on the Strip in the
late 1940s and early 1950s, with the construction of legendary casinos such as
the Flamingo, Desert Inn, The Sands, The Tropicana and the Stardust, all hastily
constructed to capitalize on the massive profits that gambling was bringing into
the city. Needless to say these early casinos were owned by the mob, and Vegas
well and truly earned its reputation as Sin city.
The 1960s: Howard
Hughes and the end of the Mob
The mob's presence in Las vegas declined
with the arrival of Howard Hughes in 1966, who, over the following four years,
bought out many of the mobsters. First the Desert Inn, then the Sands and the
Frontier, plus several smaller casinos, all fell into the ownership of Hughes.
His presence in the city encouraged other legitimate businessmen to follow his
lead and also invest in the city. The most prominent was billionaire Kirk
Kirkorian, who built the International (now the Las vegas Hilton) in 1968,
followed by the MGM Grand in 1973. Hughes competed furiously with Kirkorian and
built the Landmark hotel, a 346 foot monstrosity that took ten years to build,
never made any money, but was taller than Kirkorian's International Hotel, which
was all Hughes was after.
The 1990s: The rise of the
Mega-Resorts
After the opening of the MGM Grand, though, building on the
strip stalled. It wasn't until 1986 that work began on the next major new hotel.
The Mirage, a $630 million hotel and casino built by Steve Wynn, was a huge
gamble as it had to make $1 million a day just to service the debt incurred in
building it. However, its opening in 1989 brought huge success, and helped usher
in the next great wave of construction to the city: the rise of the
Mega-Resorts.
In 1990, Circus Circus Enterprises built the 3, 991 room
camelot-themed Excalibur hotel at the south of the Strip for $290 million. At
the time, the Excalibur was the largest hotel in the world, but this record
wouldn't last for long. Just three years later, Kirk Kirkorian, who had sold his
existing MGM Grand (which was subsequently renamed Bally's), built another MGM
Grand opposite Excalibur with over 5, 000 rooms.
1993, the year of the
new MGM Grand's opening, was a watershed year for Las vegas. The Dunes hotel was
imploded, Steve Wynn's new 2, 885 room Treasure Island hotel was opened, and
Circus Circus Enterprises (now called Mandalay Resort Group) opened the new 4,
407 room Luxor hotel, designed as a gigantic black hollow pyramid. The era of
the themed mega-resort had well and truly arrived in Las vegas, as these hotels
were followed by the Stratosphere, New york New york, Paris and the Venetian,
which all opened their doors in the 1990s.vegas hotels
It wasn't just themed resorts
that were opening, though. Las vegas was going upmarket, too, with more
exclusive and non-themed hotels, such as Mandalay Bay and the Bellagio, also
opening during this period. At $1. 7 billion, Wynn's The Bellagio was the most
expensive hotel yet built in Las vegas, and set the standard for the next
construction boom that would begin in the early 2000s.
All this
construction had come at a cost to old Las vegas, though. The Sands was
demolished to make way for The Venetian, the Dunes made way for The Bellagio,
while the Landmark, Hughes's ill-fated attempt to beat Kirkorian, was demolished
to become a car park for the Las vegas Convention Center. Las vegas never did do
sentimental!
Coming soon: $30 billion of new Vegas hotels
The five
years from 2000 to 2005 saw another brief hiatus in construction. This came to
an end in 2005, though, with the opening of the new Wynn Las vegas, a $2. 7
billion 2, 716 room luxury hotel. The Wynn was built on the site of the old
Desert Inn, which Wynn had demolished in 2001, just four years after a $200
million renovation and expansion of the old hotel.
The Wynn follows in
the footsteps of the Bellagio in being a luxurious high quality hotel. Its
success has helped sparked the biggest boom in construction that Las vegas has
ever seen, with the last of the old hotels falling like dominoes, and new
super-luxurious multi-billion dollar hotels taking their place. Las vegas is
being transformed like no other city on earth.
In the two years since the
Wynn first opened, five new mega-hotels have begun construction, each of which
makes the Wynn look cheap in comparison. Between 2007 and 2010, the following
mega-resorts will open:
The Encore at Wynn, a $1. 74 billion 2, 054 room
sister-hotel to the Wynn that will rise to 653 feet
The Palazzo, a $1. 8
billion 3, 025 room hotel that will be a sister hotel to the Venetian. With over
7, 000 rooms between them, the new Venetian/Palazzo complex will become the
biggest hotel in the world
Echelon Place, a $4 billion complex of hotels,
casinos and condominiums, that's currently being built on the ashes of the old
Stardust (which was imploded earlier in 2007)
Fontainebleau Las vegas, a $3
billion hotel being built opposite Circus Circus that will soar 63 stories
high
Project City Center, a $7. 7 billion complex of hotels comprising over
7, 000 hotel rooms, situated between New york New york and the Monte
Carlo
These hotels are currently under construction, and will open between
early 2008 and 2010. They're by no means the end of the story, though. Hotels
that are about to begin construction include the Plaza, a $5 billion hotel that
will be built on the site of the New Frontier, which will be imploded later in
2007; and the Crown Las vegas, a new hotel that will be built next to the
Fontainebleau, and which will soar an incredible 1, 888 feet. In addition, MGM
Mirage, the company behind Project CityCenter, plan to build another mega-resort
of similar scale north of Circus Circus, while Steve Wynn has plans to redevelop
the golf course sitting behind The Wynn, and turn it into - yes - another
multi-billion dollar hotel!las vegas hotels on the strip
In total, more than $30 billion dollars is
being pumped into Las vegas, making this the biggest construction boom in the
city's already stellar history. If you've never been to Las vegas before, go now
to catch a glimpse of 20th Century Vegas before the 21st Century rushes in and
transforms it forever. |
