Several demolitions in the pipeline for Las Vegas

Las Vegas is no stranger to large demolitions and implosions to clear space for new development. Since the beginning of the year, the party city has lined up several demolitions to freshen up the strip’s ever-changing appearance.

Most recently, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta received approvals this month for a 43-story hotel-casino at Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue. The 6-acre site is currently occupied by a restaurant building, souvenir shops and a shuttered motel property.

This summer, New York investment firm Gindi Capital also landed county approvals for a three-story retail complex on 9.5 acres just south of Fertitta’s site. The complex will span more than 300,000 square feet and replace a cluster of existing properties, including the now-shuttered Hawaiian Marketplace.

The fun doesn’t stop there, with Station Casinos parent company, Red Rock Resorts, also announcing this summer that it will demolish Texas Station, Fiesta Rancho and Fiesta Henderson—all of which have closed since the onset of the pandemic. According to the Review-Journal, the chain also plans to tear down the small Wild Wild West near the strip and redevelop the site.

Reno real estate firm Tolles Development Co. secured approvals in February, as well, for a nearly 2 million-square-foot industrial park in Jean. The project plans to flatten a shuttered hotel-casino in the remote outpost some 25 miles south of the strip.

Tolles partner Cory Hunt previously told the Review-Journal that the Terrible’s hotel-casino, which occupies a portion of the property acquired by Tolles, would be torn down a couple of years into the development. He added that developers would love for a motion-picture crew to come “help us celebrate blowing it up.”

“If we do implode it, we’ll do it up Vegas style,” he said.