The stories of casino projects, especially in Las Vegas, can have a massive backstory and history to them. I previously shared one such example from Atlantic City, done by Bright Sun Films, of the Revel casino (now Ocean Casino Resort).
In recent week the same channel has tackled a couple of mega developments in Las Vegas that didn’t happen as initially planned. The first, which was published first, was around the Fontainebleau, which recently has seen activity get back underway after a series of false starts.
The Fontainebleau was quite far along in construction when it stalled out, then changed hands, was going to be called The Drew, have a partnership with Marriott, and most recently is in the hands of a new partnership that includes the original developers, with the original Fontainebleau name revived.
While he was working on that one, he noticed the stalled development across the street in the historical photos he was reviewing for Fontainebleau, and then put together another video on Echelon Las Vegas:
Echelon, of course, is now the site that houses Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened earlier in the year (and will have a post up here on the site shortly). And while Resorts World ultimately opened, it is a very different project than what was originally planned for Echelon, and the history of what was to be is quite fascinating in itself.
It is also a very different resort than what was originally shown off when Genting Group announced the purchase of Echelon and their Resorts World project, and that’s covered too.
Of course, Vegas itself is a chameleon – many modern Vegas visitors never saw the riverboat theming of Harrah’s before it was scaled back, for instance, or saw some of the more elaborate theming at places like Luxor or MGM Grand before they changed. But these two projects didn’t even see their original forms come to life, before the projects stalled, and new plans came out to replace them.
