According to Officer Barbara Morgan of Las Vegas Metro, "SWAT did not have any call out there and has not had any drill there [during] the last several weeks. SWAT has not used it as a training [site]." She added that, with 3,000 officers in the field, it’s difficult for Metro to keep tabs on every training activity and location.
Any sort of deployment at the Key Largo would be pretty conspicuous, as you note, since the derelict building sits hard by Flamingo Road, between Maryland Parkway and the Strip. Closed on Jan. 18, 2005, the Key Largo has sat empty for the past five years. During its heyday – to use the term loosely – it was part of the Quality Inn chain.
If you never set foot there, apparently you didn’t miss much. CheapoVegas.com’s "Casino Graveyard" describes the Key Largo as "one of the smokiest casinos outside downtown. The bar, which advertised a 24 hour happy hour, never was happy … The amateurish tropical mural on the walls [done in 1997] made it feel you were getting loaded in a special education third-grade classroom." Cheapo Vegas does note that the Key Largo courtyard featured an attractive pool with "the feel of a cool, moist grotto." Its $1.99 hamburgers were another claim to fame.
Opened in 1973 as the Ambassador, the casino-hotel was sold to Robert Mayer and became La Mirage, later selling its name to Steve Wynn for three-quarters of million dollars. The fates of the Key Largo and Wynn seemed destined to intersect, the latter having taken over the Golden Nugget the same month the Key Largo opened.
Four months after closing the Key Largo, Mayer sold it to Florida-based Flamingo LLC for $22.9 million. A 1,000-unit condo tower was announced for the site. However, even condos on the Las Vegas Strip had trouble scaring up interest and the off-Strip project soon went into the "vaporware" category.
The Vegas condo boom having proven an outright bust, the eight-acre Key Largo property is back on the market for $79 million ($9.7 million an acre). Shouts the ad, "Fully Entitled Casino Development Site! Unrestricted Gaming License!" So if you want to build a casino at Flamingo and Paradise, here’s your big chance.
However, according to the Las Vegas Sun’s Liz Benston, the Key Largo’s underlying casino entitlement has lapsed. Anyone hoping to revive gambling on that site will need to put up 200 hotel rooms to qualify for even one blackjack table.
