A Reminder From:

Details Squeeze Out About Tropicana's Future

Wynn Puts Permanent Detour Around Avenue Q

Rick Garman, Vegas4Visitors.com

UPDATED: 3:24 pm EST February 20, 2006

Aztar Corp., the parent company of the Tropicana, has been talking about the property's future for years, and it has finally released details about what will replace the aging Strip hotel.

The Trop will be demolished to make way for two hotel casinos, the first of which will be built on the northern end of the property along Tropicana Boulevard. It will include more than 2,700 rooms, a 100,000-square-foot casino, retail and restaurant space, a new parking garage, and a rooftop pool and recreation facility.

There are a lot of questions remaining about the specific details of the project, but the biggest is this: When will it happen? Typical of Aztar, it isn't saying. Currently, the hotel is only taking reservations through April 15, but the cutoff date has been moved dozens of times, and there's no indication that it is a firm date now either.

The Tropicana is making money, so pulling the plug to cut off any revenue for the 2½years it would take to build a new resort is a daunting prospect, at best.

Sometimes I hate being right. I've been saying for a long time that Vegas audiences are not the same as those that go to Broadway shows in New York City, and that getting a Broadway-style show to work here would be difficult at best.

Apparently, the Tony-winning "Avenue Q" fell victim to this line of thinking, because officials with Wynn Las Vegas have announced that the show will close at the end of May.

Despite rave reviews (including mine), the show apparently never caught on with the Vegas crowd despite attempts to streamline it for the short attention spans that seem to come with Sin City vacationers.

The theater will be revamped to host yet another Broadway musical, "Spamalot," which is scheduled to open in 2007. A third theater was supposed to be built for the show, but since "Avenue Q" wasn't performing to expectations it was decided that it would be more cost-effective to reuse the existing theater.

With the exception of "Mamma Mia!," other attempts at full-scale Broadway musicals have failed in Las Vegas. "Chicago" had a moderately successful run at Mandalay Bay but closed after a couple of years; "We Will Rock You" barely made it a year at Paris Las Vegas, and let us not even speak of "Notre Dame du Paris," OK?

So what does that mean for the recently opened "Hairspray," the upcoming "Phantom of the Opera" and "Spamalot," and the rumored "Producers" shows? Well, if the audience reaction at the opening of "Hairspray" is any indication, that one shouldn't have trouble selling tickets (see review), but as for the others ... only time will tell.

Encore, the new sister resort to Wynn Las Vegas, is scheduled to have a groundbreaking ceremony in June of this year, with an opening date now expected in 2010.

Details on the hotel keep changing as its moves forward in the planning phases, but here's where it stands now: 2,000 all-suite rooms of more than 700 square feet apiece, a new casino, restaurants, its own pool and spa, and additional retail outlets. Encore will be built just to the north of the existing Wynn Las Vegas building and will be connected, but will function as a separate entity, with its own check-in and staff.

Total cost: approximately $1.4 billion.

Implosions used to be big business in Las Vegas, with the destruction of buildings turned into extravaganzas worth of television specials (witness Steve Wynn's spectacular show of bringing down the Dunes). But Sept. 11 changed all that, and now implosions are scheduled for the dead of night and barely announced in advance, if at all.

I happened to be in town when the Bourbon Street was imploded and it was nothing like the old days. Granted, the 10-story hotel tower was nowhere near as imposing as some of the other structures that have been removed from the city's skyline, but the fact that officials announced it only a couple of days in advance (and then only as a courtesy because it involved a major road closure) and scheduled it for 2:30 in the morning should tell you something.

A small crowd gathered outside of Bally's, where I was staying, anticipating the rare event. It was cold, but the mood was jovial, with mock countdowns started by the crowd more than once.

According to the bulletin left in each room, a warning siren was going to blare at 2:28 a.m. and again at 2:29 a.m., with the actual detonations happening at exactly 2:30 a.m. You should've seen how high everyone jumped (including myself) when the booming explosions started with no warning.

A series of concussive booms echoed from the site, but then nothing happened for a few seconds. Then a second set of booms was heard and the tower fell quickly, the whole thing over in the blink of an eye.

The casino building was torn down the next day and the site will be cleared to make way for whatever Harrah's Entertainment plans to do with it and the surrounding land.

You can see some really terrible pictures of the implosion that I tried to take by clicking here.

Loved the movie "Sideways" but decided to head to Las Vegas for your vacation instead of a wine tasting tour? Well, good news if you're going to be in town on March 9, as the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association has scheduled the Monterey Wine Country Spring Tour to be held at the RM Seafood restaurant at Mandalay Bay.

There will be a consumer tasting from 6 to 9 p.m. and will include appetizers. The cost is $45, and a portion of the proceeds will go to scholarship programs hosted by the Nevada Restaurant Association. Reservations can be made by contacting the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association at (831) 375-9400 or at MontereyWines.org. Space is limited and reservations are encouraged.

Development on the Strip has been moving north lately, but it seems as that's also the direction casino developers are headed even beyond the boundaries of Las Vegas Boulevard.

Just a few weeks after the announcement of a new Station Casinos for the northern edges of the city came the announcement that Boyd Gaming is purchasing a 40-acre parcel of land near the intersection of Interstate 15 and the Las Vegas Beltway (not too far from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway). Officials with Boyd said they haven't decided exactly what they will build there, but it will most likely be either a Sam's Town branded property or another Coast hotel, like the popular South Coast and Suncoast ventures.