The two projects are unrelated, but they do have a few things in common, not least that they've both been on -- and off -- their respective drawing boards for a very long time and, in the current economic climate, are likely to remain there for the foreseebable future.
We've written about both plans in this column over the years. Let's start with Las Vegas Wet, which was first announced in 2005, the year after the closure of the popular Wet 'n Wild water park that used to be located next to the Sahara.
Las Vegas Wet had mind-bogglingly ambitious plans for what, as you note, they claimed would be the "largest indoor water park in North America," featuring "roughly 25 acres of outdoor attractions in a variety of themed 'lands.'" Planned attractions included everything from a snow dome with indoor skiing and snowboarding to a wave pool that guests could surf on, plus a casino, an 18,000-seat sports arena, multiple hotels, and a variety of entertainment and retail complexes. Plans called for the resort to be self-sufficient energy-wise by generating its own electricity using fuel cells and microturbines. An initial opening date in "late 2009 or early 2010" was mooted.
In 2008 we checked in with a contact at developers Wet Holdings, Inc., who informed us that, "We have identified the property and have reached a price with the owner. However, the financial crunch that has been plaguing the country has slowed us down a bit. We anticipate having the land under contract in the third quarter." By this time, the potential opening date had been pushed back to 2011.
We read another statement from CEO Steve Dooner from about the same time, in which he said that, "We will soon be announcing the location of the 200+ acres we're acquiring on the south Strip. The project has expanded significantly, and a new partner will be announced soon as well. We are now up to 6 hotel casinos on the project, with over 10,000 rooms if built as currently planned."
A revisitation of the Las Vegas Wet website reveals that 2012 is now the slated opening year, but with the current state of room inventory and occupancy on and around the Strip, not to mention the prevailing drought conditions, we can't see a project that proposes the addition of a further 10,000 rooms and a slew of major water features getting off the drawing board anytime soon.
As to the Ferris or "observation" Wheel, this project has also had a long and checkered history. In fact, there have been several independent observation-wheel projects proposed over the years, and not one of them has come to fruition yet.
London and Paris first sparked renewed interest in the concept with their respective London Eye and Le Grand Roue millennium wheels and at the beginning of 2003, Clark County commissioners approved plans for a $100 million 560-foot-high Ferris wheel as part of a hotel-timeshare project to be built on the site of the former Wet 'n' Wild water park (see above). The project was a joint venture between Sahara Las Vegas Corp. (a subsidiary of Archon Corp.) and Voyager Entertainment International, also based in Las Vegas.
In December of that year, it was announced that Voyager was no longer working with Archon and, according to an article in the Las Vegas Sun, was "pursuing another giant Ferris wheel project at a more appealing site in Las Vegas." That turned out to be the Rio, but by May 2004, word on the street was that the Rio had pulled out of the deal.
Fast-forward to Sept. 27, 2005, when Voyager issued yet another press release, announcing yet another "exciting new Las Vegas Strip location" and that the company had reached an agreement with Centex Destination Properties, purchasers of the Westward Ho, to build the "world's largest observation wheel" as part of the redevelopment of the former hotel-casino site. If you visit Voyager's website, you can view graphic representations of the three generations of observation wheel that the designers have come up with. They're all very impressive -- but not one of them has actually been built anywhere yet.
Our previous attempt to contact a company representative and inquire about the project's current status was greeted with, "We can't give you that information right now," and while we have to admire the "glass-half-full" mentality of their website, where they optimistically point out the benefit to construction costs that the global economic meltdown has engendered, this is another project that we'll only believe in when we're actually riding on it.
After years of non-action from Voyager came an announcement in early 2008 that the latest plans for the development of the New Frontier site consisted of then-owner Phil Ruffin's vision for a project called Montreux that would comprise a 62-story 2,057-room hotel tower, a 90,000-square-foot casino, a performing-arts theater -- and a 485-foot Ferris wheel, with 32 capsules that could fit 25 passengers each. The wheel plans were approved by Clark County that February, but that it was still not yet 100% certain whether the plan would go ahead. Ruffin then sold to the Elad Group, which planned to build a property called the Plaza, about which there's been a deafening silence for some while now.
Finally, wheel-wise, came the announcement last summer of Harrah's ambitious plans for Project Linq, a collection of low-rise restaurants, bars, and retail shops that would stretch between Flamingo and O'Sheas at center Strip. Company officials characterized Project Link as an entertainment district along with a pedestrian corridor that would extend a block from the Strip back to the Las Vegas Monorail, where a giant Ferris wheel would rise 600 feet high. However, with the economy already in freefall last summer, analysts at the time speculated that given the credit crunch and Harrah's $20 billion in existing debt, it could be at least "a couple of years" before ground was broken on this project. Now, as Las Vegas' major developers increasingly seem to be turning their attention to Asia, we're not holding our breath about this one, either.
