Nothing, unless you count the paving of the parking garage.
Genting Group bought the land (a conflation of the sites of the Stardust, the Westward Ho, and the latter's little sister, The Ho) from Boyd Gaming in March 2013. It was a heck of a bargain for Genting, as it obtained land previously worth $15 million an acre for $4 million an acre. It predicted a 2016 opening, piggybacking on the construction already done by Boyd.
Since then, the announced Resorts World Las Vegas has hung fire. Not even a ceremonial groundbreaking in May 2015 –- you know, once of those functions where everyone crowds into a tent and executives shuffle some dirt around with silver shovels –- was enough to jump-start construction.
In May 2016, Genting received its Nevada gaming license. At the time, it disclosed that it had a small force of 125 workers on the site, which is dominated by the half-finished skeleton of Boyd's aborted Echelon megaproject. At the time, Genting was forecasting a late 2016 start of construction and a 2018 opening.
"The deliberative approach might also have been influenced by a recent slump in the economy of China, from which Genting is expected to draw market share. Also, the Malaysian ringgit, the national currency, declined in value last year, in part because of high national debt and falling oil prices," reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Richard Velotta.
Since then, Genting has piled one delay on another. In late August, the company informed investors that construction wouldn't begin until "early 2017" with the grand opening delayed another year and half to December 2019. Genting has managed to find the capital to expand its flagship property, Genting Highlands, in Malaysia, but Las Vegas is clearly a lower property.
Meanwhile, this has been a cascade of bad news for SLS Las Vegas, which -- from the day it opened -- was pinning its hopes on picking up business from tourists staying at Resorts World. (SLS executives were refreshingly candid about this.)
If and when it opens, Resorts World will cost at least $4 billion. Genting has discussed a $7.5 billion build-out, which would make it the most expensive hotel-casino ever built on the Las Vegas Strip. (Sheldon Adelson was estimated to have spent that much on Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, although the figure has since been revised downward.) Making a return on that size of investment is an extreme long shot. Even at $4 billion, return on invested capital would probably be minimal at best.
Genting is banking heavily on luring Chinese travelers to Resorts World Las Vegas, to the extent of hiring architect Paul Steelman to execute a highly ornamental Chinese-looking edifice. In addition to 3,500 slots and table games, the 21 million-square-foot plan calls for an indoor water park and a panda exhibit. Considering that Mandalay Resort Group tried and failed to pry pandas loose from China back in the '90s, we're skeptical about that last bit. At any rate, it might just as well be a unicorn-petting zoo, given the sub-snail-like pace at which Genting is approaching the start of construction.
