Las Vegas hotel construction has spotty record since recession

Las Vegas resorts are packed with guests, and the economy is on strong footing. But hotel-casino construction has had a spotty track record since the recession.

Malaysia’s Genting Group bought the mothballed Echelon on the north Strip in 2013 and announced plans for Resorts World Las Vegas. The Chinese-themed casino was initially supposed to open in 2016, but it showed little visible progress for a long time. It’s being built and slated to open by the end of 2020.

Australian billionaire James Packer acquired the vacant former New Frontier site, next to Resorts World, in 2014. His group set out to build the 1,100-room Alon Las Vegas, but Packer reportedly had trouble raising project funds.

His company, Crown Resorts, bailed on the project in late 2016 and later sold the land to Wynn Resorts.

The 203-room Lucky Dragon opened in fall 2016. It was the first hotel-casino built from the ground up in Las Vegas since the recession, but the off-Strip property struggled to draw big crowds, faced foreclosure, went bankrupt and shut down – all less than two years after it debuted.

More recently, Las Vegas casino owners and brothers Derek and Greg Stevens announced plans in January to develop Circa, downtown’s first newly built resort in decades.

The 777-room hotel is under construction and scheduled to open in December 2020.

Meanwhile, there have been plenty of hotel renovations in recent years. Upcoming overhauls include the Hard Rock Hotel’s transformation into a Virgin-branded property.

The hotel’s chief executive, Richard “Boz” Bosworth, said the renovation will cost more than $200 million.

He said his group – which includes Canadian investors and flamboyant billionaire Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group conglomerate – was “fully funded” for the project before they took ownership of the Hard Rock last year.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.