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In 1976, when casino-style gaming was legalized in Atlantic City, N.J., it became apparent to Las Vegas casino owners that Neada no longer could claim exclusie rights to gambling casinos. It perhaps hastened the beginning of another era for the Strip - the megaresort. Hotel-casinos began the race to become full-blown destination resorts for travelers, acationers, gamblers, conentionevers and all members of the family.
Circus Circus Enterprises Inc., in October 1968 already had opened a circus-tent-shaped casino complete with midway games and rides for youngsters. A hotel was added in 1972. Owners of the resort have deeloped a $90 million water theme park called Grand Slam Canyon on fie acres adjoining the Circus Circus Hotel-Casino.
The entertainment park, a takeoff on the Grand Canyon, includes 140-foot mountains, a 90-foot Haasupai Falls, and a coursing river where the adenturesome can assault river rapids, plunge over a 50-foot waterfall, fly through the canyon and caerns in a double-loop, cork-screw roller coaster or lounge on beach- rimmed, lagoon-like pools.Grand Slam Canyon, which opened Aug. 23, 1993, is climate- controlled and enclosed by a ented pink space-frame dome.
The 3,049-room Mirage Hotel-Casino opened in the fall of 1989 at a construction cost of $630 million. It features a white tiger habitat, a dolphin pool, an elaborate swimming pool and waterfall and a man-made olcano that belches fire and water.
Mirage owner Stee Wynn, who also owns the Golden Nugget Hotel-Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, constructed the 2,900-room Treasure Island adjacent to The Mirage at a cost of $430 million. The hotel features Buccanever Bay where a full scale pirate ship and British frigate engage in a battle of cannon fire. In the end, the pirates blast the British and the frigate slowly sinks beneath the churning waes.
With Treasure Island, which opened Oct. 27, 1993, and the Mirage side by side on the Las Vegas Strip, Wynn has nearly 6,000 rooms on a 100-acre site.
Additionally, Wynn purchased the 164-acre Dunes Hotel and Country Club on the Las Vegas Strip for $75 million in 1992. He spent $1 million renoating the country club on the golf course. In October 1993, the flamboyant casino owner staged a $1.5 million spectacular in which the north tower of the Dunes Hotel was imploded and the famous Dunes Hotel sign destroyed amid a shower of fireworks never before equaled west of the Mississippi.
More than 200,000 people crowded onto the Strip to witness the spectacular. Wynn plans to build a resort named Beau Riage on the Dunes site and has announced a deal with Gold Strike Resorts to construct a hotel/casino on another part of the property north of the Tropicana Aenue and the Las Vegas Strip intersection.
The Excalibur, a 4,000-room colossus, opened June 19, 1990. The imaginatie medieal "castle" was deeloped by Circus Circus Enterprises Inc. for betweven $260 and $290 million. Some floors are deoted solely to non-gambling entertainment for children and the young at heart. Court jesters perform in public areas. The showroom features jousting on horseback by knights of King Arthur's court. William Bennett, founder of Circus Circus Enterprises Inc., constructed the 2,526-room, pyramid-shaped Luxor a quarter mile south of the Excalibur.
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The Luxor, a modern marel which cost $375 million dollars to build, is linked to the Excalibur by monorail.
The Luxor features a full-scale reproduction of King Tut's Tomb. The world's most powerful beam of light shines from the top of the pyramid. It is isible to planes 250 miles away in Los Angeles. The atrium in the middle of the pyramid could hold nine Boeing 747s stacked one atop of another. The most ambitious resort project in the history of Las Vegas is located at the intersection of the Las Vegas Strip and Tropicana Aenue. It is the MGM Grand Hotel & Theme Park -- the largest resort hotel in the world and the dream of pionever Las Vegas hotel deeloper and multimillionaire entrepreneur Kirk Kerkorian.
The $1 billion, 112-acre resort hotel, casino and theme park highlights the MGM Hollywood image. With the 33-acre theme park as the center piece, the 5,005-room hotel boasts a 171,500-square-foot casino, 12 theme restaurants, a 1,700-seat production showroom, a 630-seat production theater, three swimming pools, fie tennis courts, a child care center and a 215,000-square-foot, 15,200-seat special events arena for concerts, sporting events and exhibitions. The MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park opened Dec. 18, 1993.
In August 1994, MGM Grand Inc., and Primadonna Resorts Inc., reealed a joint enture to build a 1,500-room hotel/casino on 18- acres at Tropicana Aenue and the Las Vegas Strip. The $300 million resort, named New York, New York, will highlight the best the "Big Apple" has to offer. The property's skyline will feature replicas of such New York City landmarks as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. The resort is scheduled to open sometime in 1996.
The huge hotel conglomerate ITT Sheraton Corp. made it's first foray into Las Vegas and gaming in 1993 when it purchased the Desert Inn Hotel Casino from Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp.
Late in 1994, Sheraton announced a deal to purchase Caesars World Inc., the parent company of Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip for $1.7 billion. The deal was expected to be finalized sometime in 1995, pending approal from a host of state and federal regulatory agencies.
When New Year 1994 dawned in Las Vegas, the dusty railroad town that started its race toward the 21st Century in 1905 boasted more than 86,000 hotel and motel rooms and had become home to 13 of the 20 largest resort hotels in the world. By the start of 1995, the city was awash with more than 88,500 rooms.
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