We have been coming to Las Vegas a few times per year since 2010. We usually stay at Desert Club on Koval. Accordingly, we often go past a property at the corner of Harmon and Koval that intrigues me. The property has a building on it with a sign “Ice” and looks like it was a club at one point. Other than that the property is vacant and fenced. Signage on the fence says the property is designated for a hotel/casino. What is the history of the property, who owns it and why does it remain vacant?
When it opened in August 2003, Ice Meta Club caught people's attention. Located at the corner of Harmon and Koval, it was the largest freestanding nightclub in Las Vegas and boasted six separate "zones," including the sexy fur-lined pink-lit Fur Room, plus a chic ultra lounge, pole-dancing go-go dancers, and a liquid-nitrogen fog machine that periodically engulfed the venue and its occupants in a chilling blanket. Ice offered something different and soon became noted as the place to catch top-tier DJs.
In 2004, Ice won Best New Club in the Second Annual Club World Awards and later that year it became the setting for "The Club" behind-the-scenes reality show shot by Spike TV. Ten episodes were shot, but only four episodes aired.
It wasn't its lackluster television debut that spelled doom for Ice, however; instead, it was the notorious condo craze. In late 2005, locally based Edge Investment Group announced that it had purchased the 21-acre parcel of land that included the spot on which Ice stood and had entered into a partnership with Starwood Resorts for the planned construction of a $1.7 billion W Hotel, with a 75,000-square-foot casino, 300,000 square feet of convention space, and residential units starting at $550,000, for which a sales office was erected. Construction was set to commence in early 2006.
The neighboring apartment complex was demolished and, despite having a solid lease through 2007, apparently Ice's owner yielded to financial pressure and hosted a big closing party in October 2005. But although Edge purchased an additional 25 acres of adjoining land and nominally sold 75 of the planned condo units, ground was never broken and the whole project quickly fell apart.
There's been the odd rumor in the intervening years that Ice might reopen, but none of them ever amounted to anything and we've heard of no plans for the spot in a while.
In the meantime, the sign that the property is “intended for a hotel-casino” has been a longstanding source of amusement around here. It’s part of the “Harmon Strip” that was supposed to be just around the corner for the past couple of decades and has persistently refused to happen. The idea was that, with land becoming less and less available on Las Vegas Boulevard, growth would move eastward along Harmon. Virgin Las Vegas continues to be a lonely resort-casino outpost, roughly a mile east of the Strip.
More evidence: In November 2019, the Clark County Commission approved zoning permits for 60 acres in the vicinity of Koval and Harmon. The plans reportedly included a hotel-casino with high-rise towers, a shopping center, and a five-level underground garage. No other details were revealed. We didn't hold our breath for further details. If we had, we'd be a bit blue in the face by now, since none have been forthcoming since.
