Ooooooops! One more

Since the casinos might be opening up next week, we decided to snoop around (in the car that is) to see what is going on construction wise in Las Vegas. We were surprised to see that amount of construction activity that was going on! On Las Vegas Boulevard on the main entrance into the downtown and Fremont Street area we spotted this new welcome sign – impressive!

On Fremont Street we had been aware when we left that there were planned projects. We simply assumed that with the pandemic that all activity would be on hold. However, we were surprised to see ongoing activity on the significant remodeling of the old Lady Luck Casino into the Downtown Grand Casino. As far as we can tell, if not for the Coronavirus, it would probably be open and operating now.

My brother and I would occasionally spend a few minutes at the seedier establishments (except for Glitter Gulch of course) on the north end of the Fremont Street Experience. The Las Vegas Club was a sports themed casino with a façade like you were looking into a MLB park from the outside. Mermaids Casino was ever seedier than the Las Vegas Club, always giving away worthless trinkets to anyone the aggressive hawkers outside could get to come in. And Glitter Gulch was a sleezy strip club, as though the adjective for this kind of establishment is really needed. They were all imploded to make way for Circa Las Vegas, a 777 room (huh, three 7’s in Las Vegas?), 1.25 million square foot facility is now planned to open in December. We’ll see.

When the financial crisis hit in late 2007, Boyd Gaming had acquired the old Stardust property, imploded it, and began construction of Echelon Place, likely their most high-end property. Of course, they immediately halted construction, and the H beams that were in place already weathered many years. In 2013 the Genting Group bought the site, and planned to construct a $4.3 billion casino, making it the most expensive property in all of Las Vegas. While opening has been pushed to summer of 2021, we saw a considerable amount of current construction activity going on when we walked the perimeter.

Not only is there gaming construction going on here, but there is also significant sports related construction. The Las Vegas Raiders were scheduled to have their opening game against the New Orleans Saints on September 21 this year. While its hard to tell if the stadium will be ready for that game, it does look to be complete, at least from the outside. They seem to be just doing ground work around the stadium, but there is no way to see what it might be like inside. It is massive, however, and when Raider Nation in the post-Covid 19 era is actually able to sit in the seats, I hope to be able to check it out myself.

We hope to be talking to you soon.