Stiffs & Georges blogger and admitted Trekkie David McKee responds:
Yes, although the two projects were unrelated and six years apart. There was the familiar Star Trek The Experience, which opened at the then-Las Vegas Hilton and closed a decade later, a victim of insolvent hotel owner Colony Capital, which also lost the property’s Hilton affiliation before being ousted by Goldman Sachs.
Back in 1992, however, a much bigger Star Trek-themed attraction was on the table. So secret were the discussions surrounding it that it stayed under wraps for 20 years, until it hit the Internet last week with a bang. According to Gary Goddard Entertainment CEO Gary Goddard (co-writer of the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan, the Ape Man and director of Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren), his company had been invited to pitch an iconic attraction for urban Las Vegas, one that would reverse the flow of tourists and dollars from downtown to the Strip. Then-Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and a committee of local casino bigwigs were mulling various concepts. For instance, Steve Wynn had proposed Venetian-style canals along Fremont Street.
Goddard thought even bigger, if such a thing were possible. He proposed a full-scale U.S.S. Enterprise, set at the opposite end of Glitter Gulch from the Plaza, approximately one block southeast of the El Cortez, at Fremont and Seventh streets. Budgeted at $150 million (or $243 million, in inflation-adjusted dollars), it would have been 2,133 feet long, with a 787-foot wingspan, standing 262 feet high. To put that in perspective, from bow to stern, this Enterprise would have been as long as the Queen Mary or (were it laid upon its side) the Eiffel Tower. The Washington Monument, Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty would have been puny by comparison. Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose seaplane could have fit snugly between the twin warp drives. According to Goddard’s own renderings, it would have literally overshadowed much of downtown Vegas.
Due to the attraction’s cantilevered design, a "dry dock" would have to be built around the structure, making it even larger still. Inside, visitors could tour a reproduction of the ship, as seen on TV, dine in a Star Fleet-themed restaurant and move up and down via what Goddard grandly called "travelators" (i.e., fast elevators). Revenue from the attraction would be shared with Paramount Pictures, which would also receive a licensing fee, in return for giving its blessing … and the fate of the Enterprise hung in the balance.
To be continued (with pictures) …
