Long-stalled Fontainebleau gets new life
The Fontainebleau is no more. Call it The Drew Las Vegas.
The hulking, bluish casinoresort, which has sat unfinished on the Las Vegas Strip since 2009 and became a poster child of the Great Recession, is now scheduled to open in late 2020 under a partnership between hospitality giant Marriott International and New York-based global real estate firm Witkoff.
The new luxury property, which will feature a casino and approximately 4,000 rooms and suites, announced Monday that it also will be home to the Strip’s first JW Marriott.
“It is going to be a designforward building, and when we bring it all together, people are going to say, ‘I really want to come back,”’ Steven Witkoff, chairman and CEO of the real estate firm, told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement. “The structure here is so well-conceived, even from nine years ago, that there are a lot of possibilities for us to put our imprint from a design standpoint on that property.”
The site near the Circus Circus and SLS hotel-casinos, as well as the Las Vegas Convention Center, has been dormant since 2009, about two years after privately held Fontainebleau Resorts LLC began work on the $2.9 billion, 3,900-room project. The 63-story tower was 70 per cent finished when the recession stopped construction.
Business magnate Carl Icahn and his firm, Icahn NV Gaming Acquisition LLC, bought the property out of bankruptcy in 2010 for $150 million. Witkoff and Miami-based investment firm New Valley LLC purchased it for $600 million in August.
“We think that growth is coming and is going to come here,” Witkoff said.
The planned resort will include 500,000 square feet of convention and meeting space, as well as a variety of entertainment, nightlife, retail and more than 20 dining options. The building’s design has not been finalized, but the existing pool deck will be “reimagined,” Witkoff said, in a way that it will differentiate the property from others in Las Vegas.