Big things happen fast in Las Vegas. It’s been that way for a long time. A 12-month span between 1998 and 1999 saw the openings of Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Venetian and Paris Las Vegas—still among the biggest and most recognizable resorts on the Strip.

Our current span, 2023 to 2024, is going to rival that year when all is said and done. The big, fast Vegas things of right now go beyond casino openings: the Vegas Golden Knights’ first Stanley Cup, the arrivals of Sphere and the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and February’s first Super Bowl in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium. It’s been a year of firsts, events and venues that continue to show the world this place is about much more than casinos.

All of this mind-blowing stuff might make it easy to overlook the casino opening that’s about to happen. But the December 13 debut of Fontainebleau Las Vegas is as important as any Strip resort opening since 1998-1999, and it’s also a first. No Strip resort has been through anything close to what this 67-story, shimmering blue building has seen. No Vegas casino has written such a wild tale before opening its doors.

This site on Las Vegas Boulevard was first occupied by the Thunderbird in 1948. The property was renamed as the Silverbird and then as the Strip’s second El Rancho. (The original El Rancho, located on what is now the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, burned down in 1960.)The larger El Rancho operated until 1992 and was demolished in October 2000.

Florida real estate developer Jeffrey Soffer’s company bought the property in May 2000 for $45 million but didn’t announce plans to build a new casino resort until 2005, when he partnered with former Mandalay Resort Group president Glenn Schaeffer to form Fontainebleau Resorts and purchase the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach.

“We’re going to compete on five distinct elements: Design, art, music, fashion, technology. The aesthetic is a contemporary, crisp look, with a 63-story, international-style glass skyscraper that would fit in the leading cities of the world,” Schaeffer told the Las Vegas Sun in 2007. Construction on the $2.9 billion resort began in February of that year with an opening set for October 2009.

But the group of banks financing the project infamously cut funding during the economic downturn that led to the Great Recession, and the developers sued the banks and eventually declared bankruptcy. Construction was halted when the project was 70% finished. After plenty more messy litigation, Carl Icahn outbid Penn National Gaming and another competitor and purchased the property for $156 million out of bankruptcy in early 2010.

Fontainebleau wasn’t the only Strip development derailed by the Recession: Construction of Boyd Gaming’s Echelon—now the site of Resorts World Las Vegas—was also halted. MGM Resorts’ CityCenter and the Cosmopolitan resort fought their way through the financial collapse and opened their doors in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Known for buying depressed assets in down cycles, Icahn said he would hold onto the Fontainebleau until the economy improved. He ended up selling it to the Witkoff Group in 2017 for $600 million. That company announced plans in 2018 to finish the project and open it as The Drew in 2020. Hospitality executive John Unwin, who opened the Cosmopolitan, came on to lead, and plans were made to construct a bridge connecting to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

But The Drew never found its funding and went into default in the summer of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly put the final nail in another coffin for this project. That’s when Koch Industries’ real estate investment arm partnered with Soffer’s Fontainebleau Development company to swoop in and purchase the property, reuniting it with the original developer and returning to the Fontainebleau brand. New construction began in August 2021, with Soffer confirming that the 13-year-old unused building was “in mint condition” and gutting 1,800 finished hotel rooms in favor of an updated, luxury design approach.

“The market has changed, and those styles are now outdated,” he said at a ceremony almost exactly two years ago. “Our brand will play in the Wynn, Bellagio, Aria realm. That’s the type of finish we’ll have. We’re looking forward to finishing what we started. I never thought this would sit this long because it’s always been a great building.”

“It is a fascinating story, and one that demonstrates certain characteristics,” says Fontainebleau Las Vegas president Mark Tricano. “We are really starting to pull from those characteristics to define who we are and what’s important to us.

“When you think about Jeff Soffer and his journey through this process, the things that come to mind are resilience, commitment, excellence, and we are pulling those into our operating model, almost rallying around it as a sense of pride.”

Las Vegas has waited a long time for its Fontainebleau, an internationally celebrated brand thanks to the glamorous reputation and architectural significance of the Miami hotel, established in 1954. That towering blue building on the Strip may feel familiar after passing by for 15 years. Certainly many Vegas visitors have also seen or stayed at Fontainebleau Miami. But the Vegas version is different, bigger, more modern. And essentially, it’s been designed and created twice, updated and modernized before any guests have checked in.

“As our team members have started to walk the property and see the visuals, how beautiful the property is and how it’s so well-integrated—with those historic Fontainebleau brand elements integrated into the architectural design—it really starts to become tangible to them,” Tricano says. “The energy, excitement and optimism, you can see it in their eyes. This place is amazing, something special, and to have so many more people walking around every day, it’s a sight to behold.”

It’s also special because it’s another emblem of the resilience of Las Vegas itself. CityCenter and Cosmopolitan slogged through their opening years; it took a while to get over the Recession, and less time to rebound from the pandemic because Vegas keeps building itself back stronger every time. There will be others, but those historic challenges to the city’s economy and progress can be definitively put to rest as Fontainebleau finally comes alive.

The Fontainebleau tower on the 24.5-acre Strip site is the second-tallest building in Nevada at 729 feet. The resort offers 3,644 rooms and suites and 150,000 square feet of gaming space, a six-acre elevated pool deck with seven pool experiences, and 36 first-to-market restaurants and bars. Nightclub, dayclub, 3,800-seat concert theater (where Post Malone will ring in the new year), 55,000-square-foot spa … it has all the stuff and more.

“When you’re building resorts like this, in the end, in some respects, the ‘talent’ is the same. Slot machines are the same. Food is food. It’s the magic of all the people in there that make the place special and I feel that,” says Fedor Banuchi, senior vice president of entertainment, special events and sponsorships. “Our owners have really created an asset that’s truly spectacular, visually stunning, and I think it will be very appealing to a lot of people.

“This is something Las Vegas has been waiting for … the restaurants people want to go to, the retail people want to buy, the shows people want to see. It’s going to have it all.”

Banuchi understands how a casino can captivate an audience in a special way; he was a day one employee at the Cosmopolitan. The style and vibes at that resort created a feeling of newness on the Strip and caught the attention of locals who are notoriously picky about venturing into the tourist corridor. He thinks Fontainebleau has even greater potential to accomplish both feats.

“But Fontainebleau is of this era. The design is a lot more timeless and fresh,” he says. “The restaurant collection is curated and all new-to-market, but truly world-class with Michelin-star chefs and restaurants that are considered the No. 1 export of their country.”

And locals, like tourists, are always excited to see the big new thing on the Strip. How that thing resonates determines how badly we all want to go back and explore its myriad experiences.

“The number that’s out there [$3.7 billion] doesn’t take into consideration what was spent on the first go-round,” Banuchi says. “To build this asset with today’s money would be something like $10 billion. There’s no resort on the Strip that’s close.

“When people come in and see this place, it’s awe-inspiring. It’s beautiful. You come inside and it just feels wonderful.”

David “Papi” Einhorn has always been big on Vegas, even when he was just “the grillmaster” cooking out in friends’ backyards, before he teamed with Groot Hospitality to open the insanely popular, 93-seat Papi Steak restaurant in Miami Beach’s prestigious South of Fifth neighborhood.

“I came when I was 18 and stayed at the Mirage and was blown away, just a kid [thinking] this is the craziest, biggest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says. “I’ve been through all the stages of Vegas—Mirage when that was hot, went to the Siegfried & Roy show, went to Bellagio when that was the hottest thing, and now I’ve been at the Wynn. I always like to stay where the energy is. Now that’s going to be Fontainebleau.”

There are too many wildly anticipated restaurants coming to Fontainebleau to rank which ones might be most exciting, but Papi Steak is certainly cut out for life in Las Vegas. The Miami chophouse is known for its party energy, a massive tomahawk-cut steak, and personal service that hearkens back to the golden era of hospitality in both cities.

“Whenever you go to Vegas, it’s already in your mind that you’re going to have a good time, and Papi Steak is all about having a good time,” Einhorn says. “High energy, great service, great food, personalization, old-school hospitality—all these things Vegas has, we did in Miami, to coming to Vegas now is a perfect match. And it’s kind of a dream to be able to host people in Las Vegas.”

Like the Fontainebleau bowtie logo that’s embedded in the marble floors when you enter through the main porte-cochere, the strategy to anticipate guests’ needs and desires is designed into the property. The 20,000-square-foot lobby and massive crystal chandelier in the central Bleau Bar are statement-making visuals, introducing or reminding all that this is as luxurious as it gets. The casino is all about connectivity, so there’s no long walks to find the convention spaces or the theater, Tricano says. “This goes back to the property in Miami, that more midcentury modern [design] with more curvature, but you don’t see a lot of right angles. So there’s this flow that exists throughout the casino that’s easy to navigate.”

Providing an accessible and customizable tactile experience—how to get around to your favorite parts of the resort—has become essential in Las Vegas, showcased with the Strip’s two newest built-from-the-ground-up resorts (Cosmopolitan and Resorts World). It’s no simple task, and elevating that to an artful level seems even more complicated. But that’s the objective at Fontainebleau.

“The thing I’m most excited about is just the integrated nature of everything, how the property is presented from an architectural perspective, a design perspective. It’s hard to articulate or convey this through words until you actually experience it,” Tricano says. “The second thing that’s extremely exciting and I’m very proud of is the food and beverage program, which will be an important differentiator for us.

“The third thing is really the experience we plan to create through our people,” Tricano continues. “We talk a lot internally about the concept of humanized hospitality, and we’ve led with a people-first culture in a lot of our recruiting so we’ve been able to attract talent that wants to work in that type of environment. We have the right assets and the right programming to deliver the right experience.”

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