Will Fountainbleau ever be completed?

Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong @ 31 stories and 465' is the tallest hotel every knocked down, and one of the newest buildings ever demolished at only 15 years old.
The building was replaced with a much larger office buildings, and Ritz is replacing the hotel this year with the tallest hotel ever built 1588' and 108 stories (4th tallest building in the world).


The tallest building ever demolished (excepting 9-11) is the Singer building completed in 1908 and demolished 1968, 47 floors and 612'.


If Fountainbleau gets demolished it will set a world record for height (63 floors and 735') and obviously as one of the few buildings demolished without being used.

Without being used?
I thought it was being used as a giant billboard.
Why would they demolish it unless land values were rising. In this market, I would expect them to be plummeting and nowhere near that fifty million an acre mark.

It would probably cost less to finish it than to demolish it.

Therefore, sooner or later, it will be finished.

Ditto for Revel in Atlantic City.

I think Revel in Atlantic City just opened or just announced an opening or some such thing... I saw the headline but I was snockered at the time and don't remember it.

Quote: FleaStiff

I think Revel in Atlantic City just opened or just announced an opening or some such thing... I saw the headline but I was snockered at the time and don't remember it.

Atlantic City needs to become Las Vegas East,” Governor Christie said in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “It needs to become a place that caters to convention business, that caters to summer vacation business.”

Christie said he’s counting on completion of the casino, a half-built, 53-story hotel and casino on 20 acres of beachfront property, to add jobs to the state’s slumping economy and inject new life into the city’s gambling industry. The Revel would be the city’s biggest if completed according to its original plan, which called for two towers with 3,800 hotel rooms and 150,000 square feet of gambling space.

He intends for the state to loan money to complete the casino.

The Ryugyong Hotel, in North Korea, has the longest construction period of any hotel in history. Work began in 1987 and completely stopped for 16 years. It is now slated to be completed in 2012 for an impressive 105 stories. It may have as many as 7,665 hotel rooms (details are scarce) which would be more than the combined Venetian and Palazzo.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

It would probably cost less to finish it than to demolish it.

Carl Icahn bought the Fountainbleau for a bargain basement price of $151 million in January 2010 when it was only 70 percent complete. The New York Post says that finishing the last remaining 30 percent would cost at least $1.6 billion, not including the furniture. Since he has already sold the Fountainbleau's existing furniture to those hotels in lovely Primm, Nevada, it's obvious that Icahn has no intention of spending the money to finish construction.

My question: if they do implode the Fountainbleau, how much is the parcel of land that it sits on worth? If Icahn sells the land, will he be able to recoup his investment? If not, I'm surprised that a savvy investor like Icahn made this particular mistake.

Quote: reno

My question: if they do implode the Fountainbleau, how much is the parcel of land that it sits on worth?

I don't know, but I would bet it would be worth less than the expense of imploding the FB. At least it was evidently made better than the Harmon, as I've never of any deadline to implode the eyesore.

Quote: reno

Since he has already sold the Fountainbleau's existing furniture to those hotels in lovely Primm, Nevada,

Didn't the Plaza buy some of it too, for the reopening?

Quote: EvenBob

Didn't the Plaza buy some of it too, for the reopening?

Yes. The Plaza has all new Fountainblew[sic] furniture. It should be lovely.

They should knock down the Fountainbleau. It's fugly.

The Revel is opening in May as a Smoke-Free facility.^*#!

^ - maybe
* - Who knows for sure
# - possibly
! - We'll see

Quote: DJTeddyBear

It would probably cost less to finish it than to demolish it.

Therefore, sooner or later, it will be finished.

Ditto for Revel in Atlantic City.

That may or may not be true. As I have pointed out before this would be the largest building ever deliberately demolished. However, if you demolish it you would just have to build a new tower in it's place. The building is secure from the elements and could stand empty like it is for a decade. In any case it is a very tiny percent of Carl Icahn's portfolio and he can sit on it virtually forever if he so chooses.


The relevant figure is that roughly $1.675 billion has been borrowed against the project and contractors have asserted liens of $424 million against it. It would make sense for Carl to wait out these investors so that he can buy out those liens for pennies on the dollar. Presumably they are not multi-billionaires and need to settle and collect some money sooner or later.

Christopher Milan took out a $450 million option on the empty land next door where the Wet & Wild park used to be. When that option expired in June 2008 he paid the penalty (which may have been close to $100 million) and he optioned the same land for over $600 million. Both plots of land are about 25 acres.

People are hesitant to say what land on the strip is worth since no one is buying and no one is selling. The only strip property sale since the February 2008 sale of the Stratosphere (for a price agreed to in May 2007) has been the $25 million acquisition of 2.15 acres at Harmon Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard by developer Brett Torino in February 2010 which was purchased from Clark County in a land auction. He is building a shopping complex around a drug store.