Vegas Hotel News for November 2, 2007

Just a few quick Vegas notes of interest for this week regarding upcoming hotel developments and renovations:

• The Frontier hotel, also known as the New Frontier has been marked for implosion this month on Tuesday, November 13th. The 2am demolition of the buildings will clear the property for the upcoming Plaza resort project.

• Landry’s Restaurants, owner of the Golden Nugget hotel downtown, has announced a $150 million expansion project for the property, in the form of a 500-room new tower which is set to open in 2009. The company has already invested $170 million in renovations since taking over the hotel in 2005, including upgrading the casino and pool areas, and the addition of several new restaurants. Some of the renovated guest rooms are now being called “Gold Club” rooms and feature plasma TVs, deep soaking tubs with rain tree showers, robes & slippers, VIP line passes and check-in and turn down service, among many special amenities. The renovations continue with the December opening of a new nightclub called Gold Diggers, a sushi bar and convention area.

• Developer Christopher Milam has bowed to pressure from the FAA and lowered the height of his Crown Las Vegas hotel. Originally, it would have been a 1,888-ft 142-story tower. New plans have lowered the height to 1,150 feet, which puts it at one foot taller than the nearby Stratosphere, still making it the tallest building in Vegas. These new plans, however, mean the approval process has to start all over, adding several months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to the finished project.

• Will the Moulin Rouge live again? Dale Scott, owner of the legendary hotel/casino, has announced a new plan to redevelop the 15-acre property to hold a 750-room hotel and a 100,000-sq-ft casino. He had previously announced plans for a smaller boutique-type of hotel-casino after the original Moulin Rouge was destroyed by fire, but nothing ever came of it. Financing for this new project has not been confirmed, but Scott says demolition work could begin as early as December. The property sits on Bonanza Rd, just northwest of the I-15/I-515/I-95 mega-interchange and downtown Las Vegas.

• A Colorado-based holding company has purchased two acres at the northeast corner of the Strip and Sahara Ave for $47 million. No plans have been released for the property, which formerly held the Holy Cow! casino and microbrewery and was also to be the site of the now-failed Ivana Las Vegas property from Ivana Trump.