You’ll have missed most of the recent boomlet in Strip construction. Howard Bulloch’s Skyvue observation wheel, at the far south end of the Strip, has been comatose (if not dead) for longer than we can recall, two bare, concrete columns stretching toward infinity – or liquidity, whichever is further out of reach. However, the MGM Resorts International/AEG arena behind New York-New York is progressing nicely, as is The Park, between NY-NY and Monte Carlo.
Caesars Palace is getting a facelift – literally. Much of the façade has been taken down, replaced with squares of steel and cubes of concrete that will eventually become the Omnia nightclub.
The Grand Bazaar Shops outdoor retail area at Bally's missed its slated December debut, and is now set to open in February, so there may be the tail-end of some construction activity there when you visit.
Across the Strip, The Linq hotel (formerly The Quad, formerly Imperial Palace) is roughly halfway through its transformation, although it’s already open for business. Half the hotel rooms have been redone, the casino floor and 3535 Bar are active, and O’Sheas (now essentially a big room tucked into a bigger casino) is a beehive of player activity. But the retail mall is in progress and the pool deck is months away. If you hurry, you can still see the venerable Imperial Palace pagoda roofs before they’re removed.
Treasure Island is nearing completion of its Strip-facing retail mall, which will be anchored in Sirens’ Cove by a CVS Pharmacy. Crossing Convention Center Drive, you will come upon a long, colorful and copiously illustrated fence that partially conceals the former skeleton of Echelon and future site of Resorts World Las Vegas. However, Resorts World owner Genting Americas is moving cautiously, if at all: A promised, autumn groundbreaking didn’t happen and there’s been no new timeline for construction to begin on the multibillion-dollar, multi-stage project.
Finally, north of the Riviera is Fontainebleau, which can be called a "construction site" only in the sense that it is unfinished. Owner Carl Icahn has had the principal crane removed and sent off to Arizona. The consensus is that Icahn is waiting for Strip land to sufficiently improve in value (prices are still deeply depressed from their 2007 heights) for someone to buy the property and, presumably, to cannibalize the structural steel. For Fontainebleau to be completed according to plan, it would cost billions, not millions of dollars, and neither Icahn nor anybody else appears ready to spring for that.
