In the heart of Las Vegas, a city where fortunes are routinely made and lost in the roll of dice or the spin of a wheel, the stately Fontainebleau Las Vegas has emerged as the latest monument to desert audacity. When its foundation was laid in February 2007, the glitzy Frontier still graced the opposing street corner, a testament to the ever-shifting tides of Sin City’s fortunes.
Originally envisioned as a luxurious sibling to its Miami counterpart, the Fontainebleau Las Vegas was slated for glory in October 2009. Yet the intervening years unfurled not as a red carpet, but as an obstacle course riddled with financial upheavals and calamitous timing. This towering edifice, which aspired to be the tallest occupied building in Nevada, stood incomplete and unoccupied for 16 years, its destiny mired in bankruptcy, interrupted constructions, and numerous ownership and name changes.
At the stroke of midnight Thursday, this once-quiet giant will awaken in full splendor, throwing open its doors as the Strip’s newest casino resort. The tale of its journey to completion is one steeped in persevering vision amid economic storms.
Hard hats and steel beams clanked together back in 2007 on a site storied by casino history—once home to the iconic Thunderbird hotel inaugurated in 1948, and later rechristened as the Silverbird, then El Rancho before its closure in 1992. Yet the year that heralded Fontainebleau’s rise was marked as the most inauspicious time to start a building project since the harrowing days of 1929, just on the cusp of the cataclysmic Great Recession.
Amidst a series of chilling precursors—the fatal plummet of a construction worker and the unforeseen collapse of freshly-poured concrete—the Fontainebleau’s grand silhouette nonetheless reached completion on November 14, 2008. But then, misfortune tight his grip as the project’s financial lifelines—Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase—succumbed to economic foreboding, retracting a promised $770 million. The ambitious $2.8 billion initiative was cast into bankruptcy.
The cranes atop the partially completed giant fell still. Years passed as the building, seventy percent complete, loomed over the Strip, a concrete shadow of economic malaise. The once-opulent fixtures intended for its rooms found new homes elsewhere in the city.
Then, a twist of fate: in 2010, in waltzed billionaire Carl Icahn, acquiring the marooned project at a bankruptcy auction for a mere $150 million. A shrewd investment move it proved to be, as he departed the scene in 2017, selling the building to Steven Witkoff and New Valley for a quadruple return on his original stake without investing further in the property.
Redevelopment efforts under the new ownership, now christened The Drew Las Vegas in memoriam of Witkoff’s late son, encountered their fair share of setbacks—from arson that caused millions in damages, to the unforeseen global halt in construction activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, in a narrative twist befitting of the Las Vegas spirit, Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development, in partnership with Koch Real Estate Investments, reclaimed the project for $650 million in 2021, investing not only in the structure itself but also in the dreams it represented. Despite a last-minute withdrawal by Marriott International, the project plowed forward.
The tale came full circle as the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, its total costs ballooning to $3.7 billion, prepared for its grand unveiling—no longer a mere promise but a tangible beacon of luxury hospitality.
As we reflect on the revealing story of the Fontainebleau—a testament to both human aspiration and resilience—it’s only fitting to consider the broader landscape of casino entertainment and its latest evolution, the digital realm. We, at the West Island Blog, invite you to explore a curated selection of the finest online casinos at your leisure. In a world continuously reshaped by technology, discover the convenience and excitement of playing from anywhere, anyplace—where the legacy of places like the Fontainebleau extends into the virtual domain, offering top-ranked gaming experiences at your fingertips.
