Maybe. Maybe not.
Early this year, Boyd Gaming bought 13 acres behind the Stardust, currently occupied by Las Vegas' original Budget Suites, for $43 million. Boyd now controls 63 acres on and around the Stardust. This happens to be the exact acreage that MGM Mirage is building out for its monumental CityCenter project, which suggests to some analysts that Boyd may be in the process of developing its own metaresort.
While announcing the Budget Suites purchase, Boyd indicated that it would reveal its plans for the Stardust shortly after Wynn Las Vegas opened in late April 2005.
That didn't happen. At the time, Boyd executives postponed announcing its plans, saying that it was still too early to try and determine what Las Vegas might look like in the decade or so it would probably take to redevelop that much Strip property.
But a couple of months later, in June, Boyd announced that it would complete the design of the redevelopment of the Stardust by the end of this year. So far, rumor has it that the Stardust and the wrecking ball or an implosion team will meet, briefly, sometime in 2006.
