 | ||||||||||||
| Home | Attractions | Dining | Gaming | HOTELS | Museum | Nightlife | Recreation | Reservations | Resources | Shopping | Shows | Weekly Column |
|
| ||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Fontainebleau: Preview Information | |||||||||||
Fontainebleau Facts & Figures
From the Vegas4Visitors Weekly Update of January 25, 2010: Billionaire Carl Icahn, former owner of The Stratosphere, has won the moribund Fontainebleau resort after an auction was cancelled because they only got one bid. His. In the bargain of the week category, Icahn snapped up the property for $156 million, a fraction of the estimated $2 billion that has already been spent building the place. But that is just the beginning of the checks that Icahn will need to write. It is believed that it will require another $1 billion (at least) to finish the hotel. Icahn says he will take his time to decide the best plan for moving forward on the Fontainebleau. Construction on the nearly 4,000 room hotel/casino near The Riviera came to a halt in 2009 after the original developers ran into money problems. Since there are still some legal matters to resolve surrounding the transfer of ownership and since finish the place off will probably take at least a year from "go," don't expect to see the Fontainebleau anytime before 2011. There is also some question as to whether or not it will still be called The Fontainebleau when it opens. A name change has been rumored to get rid of the stench of failure surrounding its current moniker. Icahn has made a specialty out of buying things out of bankruptcy and then making a huge profit off of them. That's what he did in the '90s with The Stratosphere and more recently with the Tropicana in Atlantic City. He also owns eight other casinos around the country, all under the newly formed banner of Tropicana Entertainment, although oddly that doesn't including the Tropicana in Las Vegas. From the Vegas4Visitors Weekly Update of December 7, 2009: The shuttered Fontainebleau resort on The Strip will go up for auction on January 21st according to a bankruptcy judge, with a familiar name behind the opening bid. Billionaire Carl Icahn, former owner of The Stratosphere, submitted a $156 million bid to the courts, topping several other pre-auction bids including a seriously lowball $50 million bid from Penn National Gaming a couple of weeks ago. Penn National may come back to the table when the actual auction starts, but Icahn is considered to be the leading suitor for the troubled property. Icahn sold the Stratosphere and locals' casinos Arizona Charlie's a few years ago for more than a billion dollars, putting him in the unique position of having the resources to not only buy the Fontainebleau, but finish it. Analysts believe that will take at least a billion all by itself. The Fontainebleau is a 4,000 room hotel-casino that was under construction on the north end of The Strip near The Riviera. The company that was developing it lost their financing and construction stopped earlier this year. The property has been working its way through bankruptcy courts ever since and now that the January 21st date has been set, it looks like the construction crews could be headed back to work in early 2010 with a possible mid 2011 opening. From the Vegas4Visitors Weekly Update of July 20, 2009: Fontainblech
The outlook is getting even bleaker for the Fontainebleau, the partially built multi-billion dollar hotel-casino project on the north end of The Strip.
The hotel, which was supposed to open this fall, has been sitting dormant for months after construction crews were sent home due to financial difficulties and a variety of lawsuits. It seemed obvious to everyone that the property would not open as scheduled, but it took the company's bankruptcy filing to confirm that 2009 is looking more like 2010 or beyond at this point.
The parent company of the hotel asked for the court's permission to cancel meetings and conventions that had been booked for the first half of 2010.
And as if that weren't bad enough, even more new lawsuits were filed by people affected in one way or another by the collapse of the project's financing. The whole thing will probably be locked up in litigation for a very long time.
Fontainebleau Goes Bankrupt
The bankruptcy courts are getting crowded with Las Vegas companies. The latest to join the Chapter 11 ranks is Fontainebleau, the (previously) under-construction mega-resort on the north end of The Strip.
The owners of the development and two of its affiliates filed for bankruptcy protection last week after months of drama that included banks pulling financing, lawsuits all around, layoffs, and construction on the $3 billion projection essentially coming to a halt.
The Fontainebleau was intended to be a modern Las Vegas interpretation of the famed Miami hotel with nearly 4,000 rooms, a 100,000 square-foot casino, restaurants, showrooms, shopping, and more. The mostly finished room tower soars above neighboring Riviera and Sahara on the north end of The Strip, but construction crews were laid off and now the building stands there, effectively dormant.
The trouble started earlier this year when several banks pulled financing for the project after, they allege, the developers missed some important debt payments. The developers say they didn't miss a payment and accused the banks of collaborating to shut down the project due to conflict of interest (one of the banks is dealing with the also bankrupt, also under construction Cosmopolitan hotel down the street) via a $3 billion lawsuit. Without money to pay people, the bulk of nearly 3,000 construction workers were laid off as were most of the staff in the corporate offices.
The hotel was due to open late this year but that is not going to happen. It'll probably take the rest of 2009 to sort out the bankruptcy and the lawsuits, all of which will probably need to happen before they can get back to finishing off the resort. Figure late 2010 at the earliest.
Big Bucks for Fontainebleau
It's been talked about for years but it looks like the Fontainebleau project is finally going to move forward with the announcement that the company behind the resort has secured more than $4 billion in financing. Although early stabs at construction on the property, located at the former El Rancho site just north of The Riviera, began in February, it wasn't until this line of credit was secured that people really believed there would ever actually be a real building there. The Fontainebleau will be modeled after the famed Miami resort of the same name and will feature nearly 4,000 rooms, a casino, a theater, restaurants, convention space, and more with a price tag estimated to be in the $3 billion range. The rest of the line of credit will go toward sprucing up the Miami hotel at the same time. The Vegas version is currently set for a late 2009 bow.
Fountainbleau Update
Plans for a multi-billion resort based on the famed Miami hotel of the same name have been in the works for years but little has happened on the site just north of The Riviera where the old El Rancho used to be located. Despite a long-passed date for construction and opening, the project is still on track according to the people behind it, one of whom is a very well-respected Vegas hotel executive who used to be in charge of Mandalay Resorts Group. He says they are actively raising the capital and hope to have work started before the end of 2007.
Fountainbleau Set For Strip
The famed Miami Beach resort Fountainbleau will get a Las Vegas sister with the announcement of a $1.5 billion development on The Strip just north of The Riviera and south of The Sahara. Set for the now vacant land that used to be home to The Silverbird (and later El Rancho) and Algiers, the project will evoke the namesake original with a luxurious Miami Beach theme, 4,000 rooms (include many condo units), a casino, and all of the requisite Strip resorts bells and whistles. It's still in the planning and money-raising phases so anything could happen between now and shovel turning, but if all goes according to plan construction will commence later this year and be complete by 2008.
| |||||||||||
