The Strange Parallels Between Fontainebleau and a Bygone Vegas Casino
Some interesting and uncanny parallels be betwixt the stony descent story of the bran-new Fontainebleau and another Las Vegas cassino resort that opened 54 years earlier, only a city block away.
Tall Orders
In 1960, Frank Caroll, a edifice developer from Sunflower State City, purchased several vacant acres eastward of the Strip and crosswise from the freshly opened Las Vegas Convention Center. He intended to establish his have variation of the Hollywood Landmark Hotel.
“I had to get something different,” Caroll told the Las Vegas Sun Magazine inwards 1979. “I don’t same to reinforced boxes for hotels.”
Caroll hired local structural engine driver Clarence Stringer, who came up with the thought of a tower capped past a saucer.
According to Marc Wagner’s well-researched 2018 book, Above Them All: The Story of the Landmark Hotel & Casino, Caroll e'er denied that Stringer’s idea was inspired by the Seattle skyline’s to the highest degree famous feature, which was completed i month after the Landmark stone-broke ground.
Though the pattern brainchild the Landmark borrowed from the Space Needle is mentioned in nearly every story of the cassino hotel on the internet, thither is no more tangible evidence supporting or refuting it.
Caroll began building the Landmark on Sept. 6, 1961, scope early 1963 as its opening date. But financing problems stopped his cranes inwards Feb 1963. The $3M loaned Caroll by the Appliance Buyers Credit Corporation (ABCC), a subsidiary of RCA-Whirlpool, was all gone. ABCC non only refused to expand his credit, it alleged that Caroll had defaulted on his payments.
For triad years, the already topped-off structure would stand, 80% complete, as the tallest building inward Nevada, and as its biggest eyesore.
Sounding Familiar Yet?
In 1966, the Teamsters Pension Fund floated a $5.5M building loan to finish the Landmark, with ownership transferred to a mathematical group of investors that included Caroll and his wife. Construction restarted in September of that year, with a new projected windup escort of early 1967.
By Apr 5, 1968, the Landmark was stated fill out and the media was invited interior for a preview tour. During the event, however, Caroll physically attacked the property’s interior designer, Elmore Leonard England, whom he accused of flirting with his wife.
Caroll was arrested for the incident deuce weeks later. Three weeks after that, he withdrew his petition for a gaming licence and placed the Landmark up for sale.
In May 1968, the Teamsters Pension Fund filed a note of breach on the trustfulness deed, claiming it hadn’t received loan payments since Oct 1967.
The Landmark filed a petition to adjudge bankruptcy on Aug. 29, 1968.
Bleau Also inwards the Red
Construction on Fontainebleau Las Vegas began inwards 2007 on the plot first-class honours degree occupied past the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino in 1948. Its owners, led past Jeffrey Soffer, planned to open up it as a sis holding to their Miami resort hotel inward October 2009.
But the Great Recession had other plans. A twelvemonth after the resort’s 68-story tower was topped turned inward 2007, lenders Bank of America and JP Sir Henry Morgan Chase got so spooked by the economical outlook that they canceled their $770M inward funding, and the $2.8B externalise went bankrupt.
For most of 2009 through 2017, the structure stood only 70% complete, an unwanted and humiliating monument to economic ruin.
Yes, This Definitely Sounds Familiar
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn saw economical opportunity inwards economical hardship, as billionaires often do. He bought the building inwards a 2010 failure vendue for $150M and didn’t do a bingle thing to it for VII years. In 2017, he sold it to holding developer Steven Witkoff and an investment fast(a) called New Valley for $600M, quaternity times what he paid.
Witkoff began redeveloping the unfinished cassino resort, which he renamed The Drew Las Vegas inward honour of his son, St. Andrew Witkoff, who died of a drug overdose in 2011.
Construction was halted once more inward March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of businesses in Las Vegas. At the time, Witkoff was closemouthed to finalizing a $2 billion mental synthesis loan, which never came through.
Parallel Happy Endings, Too
Howard Edward James Hughes became the deliverer of the Landmark. On Oct. 23, 1968, he purchased the vacant holding for $17.3M, which included $8.9M owed to the Teamsters. It was the 6th and last Vegas gambling casino purchased by the flake billionaire during a spree that started with the Desert Inn in 1966.
Hughes spent an additional $3M to goal it to his specifications.
The Landmark opened July 1, 1969, and lasted until 1990, next a 1985 bankruptcy it could ne'er recover from. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority purchased the attribute for $15M inwards September 1993, then demolished it inward 1995 to supply a 2K-space parking lot to its normal center, which is at present the center’s Benjamin West Hall.
Footage of the Landmark’s implosion is piece of pop-cultural history, as it was filmed by theater director Tim Burton and included inward his 1996 movie, Mars Attacks.
The Fontainebleau’s well-chosen ending is a great deal to a greater extent heartwarming, since its savior was its archetype owner. In a stunning turn of events, the cast was reacquired by Soffer in 2021 for $650M through his company, Fontainebleau Development, inwards partnership with Koch Real Estate Investments. They in agreement(p) to occupy on Witkoff’s debt to avoid foreclosure, and the propose rehewed to its archetype mental synthesis plans.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas opened to the public at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2023.
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