Las Vegas Reinvents Itself—Again!

Las Vegas is always in motion. Behind the neon and the crowds, cranes are in gear building a continuous lineup of towers, guestrooms, attractions and new entertainment complexes.

Nearly $17 billion in new construction projects are on the table through 2020, adding some 14,000 guestrooms, most of which will be concentrated within a nine-mile length that leads from Mandalay Bay to Downtown Las Vegas.

“What has not changed is that Las Vegas remains a unique global destination where there is just a ton of things to do, any hour of the day,” said Michael Goldsmith, vice president of marketing for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

“Every decade or generation thinks Las Vegas is overbuilt and this place or that place will never be successful – but hotel occupancy continues to climb, and there is a lot of construction on the books—so much so that we expect the room count to approach 160,000 by 2020—the most hotel rooms in the world in one place.”

Here’s a sampling of what’s to come.

RESORTS

Topping the list of new hotels is The Drew, which will be located in the unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas tower, whose construction was halted during the recession in 2008. The Drew, a resort development project of nearly 4,000 rooms by Marriott International and real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, will serve as the Strip’s first JW Marriott in 2020.

The 68-story indigo-hued glass tower, which is located near the SLS Las Vegas and Circus Circus, will also house an EDITION- branded hotel. The Drew will offer generous events, entertainment and convention space, a retail complex, two dozen restaurants and lounges, and an eight-acre pool deck.

That mid-Strip area, currently home to empty fields and strip malls, will be the recipient of the lion’s share of development over the next three years. Wynn West, a 2,000- to 3,000-room property will be constructed on the 38-acre site of what had been the New Frontier. It will connect to the Encore Beach Club and the Wynn Resort via an umbilical bridge over Las Vegas Blvd.

Adjacent to Wynn Las Vegas, the former Desert Inn Golf Course is morphing into a 25-acre development called Paradise Park, which will include a state-of-the-art, 280,000-square-foot luxury meeting and convention development.

It will bring a new 47-story, 1,500-room hotel between the existing Wynn and Encore towers, which will be especially convenient for meeting attendees. Paradise Park will be surrounded by a one-mile boardwalk and white-sand beach, and feature a nightly caravan float on a lagoon. Further details have not yet been finalized.

Moving south along the Strip, MGM Resorts International completed a $450 million total remake of the 2,700-room Monte Carlo into a luxury resort called Park MGM. That project continues with a 292-room Las Vegas version of the popular New York City lifestyle hotel, the NoMad. The hotel will have its own check-in area, swimming pools and a casino when it opens this fall.

ATTRACTIONS

An agreement between Sands Corp. (parent company of The Venetian and Palazzo) and Madison Square Gardens Company will create the Sphere, an 18,000-seat, futuristic-looking music and entertainment venue encased in a massive LED shell, which shape-shifts into a globe, tennis ball or event icon. It is slated to open on New Year’s Eve 2020.

Meanwhile, thrill-seeking clients will have a new adventure to check out this fall when Caesars Entertainment Corp. unveils the Fly LINQ zipline at the LINQ Promenade. Visitors will find 10 adjacent ziplines that can launch together from the top of the 122-foot-tall launch tower.

Riders can choose to ride in “flying style” or seated as they sail eastward toward the High Roller, traveling 1,080 feet at speeds of 35 miles per hour during the 35-second flight.

At MGM Grand, the focus is on a new 30-minute Zombie Apocalypse virtual reality experience, which pits players in a battle with rogue robots and space drones. Prices Zombie Apocalypse start at $50.

Roller coaster fans will love the newly upgraded, virtual-reality Big Apple Roller Coaster at MGM’s New York New York Hotel, which opened this year. The ride takes no prisoners as it weaves inside and outside the property at 67 mph. Virtual-reality enhancements send riders wearing headsets on a separate off-track journey through the Strip and the Nevada desert. Tickets are $20 per person with headsets and $15 without.

Henderson’s Ethel M Chocolate Factory—the inventor of the original Mars Bar—is offering new wine-and-chocolate pairings. The company offers free factory tours that can end with a sugar high in $25 tastings of White Chocolate Truffle with Ménage à Trois Prosecco, Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter with Napa Cellars Chardonnay, Milk Chocolate Pecan Caramel Rapture with Dona Paula Malbec and Dark Chocolate Lemon Satin Crème with Complicated Pinot Noir. Daily tastings run every two hours from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.