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Vegas Retold

The history of Fontainebleau Las Vegas

Opened December 13, 2023

Red floral arrangements, sculptural columns and a registration counter beneath a circular patterned ceiling in Fontainebleau’s lobby.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas’s lobby and registration area, photographed May 13, 2026. This is an interior view of the completed resort.

Yelderberry / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Original source photograph retained without editorial alteration. Responsive displays may resize and crop the presentation.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas opened to the public shortly before midnight on December 13, 2023. Its blue-glass tower had stood unfinished for years on the north Strip. The opening brought a long-delayed Las Vegas project into operation under a name already associated with the separate Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel, which opened in 1954.

An unfinished tower

Construction was under way in 2007, but financing troubles interrupted the project. Tutor Perini’s 2009 annual report, describing its plumbing subsidiary’s involvement, records work stopping and the project shutting down by June 2009. The developer entered Chapter 11 that month. A tall, largely built structure did not mean an operating hotel or casino.

The Drew proposal

The same filing describes the January 2010 bankruptcy auction won by an Icahn company. Years later, Witkoff and Marriott announced a different plan: The Drew Las Vegas, with EDITION and JW Marriott hotels. Their February 2018 announcement anticipated a late-2020 debut. It remained a development name and forecast, rather than a casino that welcomed guests under that name.

The return to Fontainebleau

In February 2021, Koch Real Estate Investments announced that it had acquired the unfinished property in partnership with Fontainebleau Development. Jeffrey Soffer’s company returned to the project. A November ceremony marked the renewed push to complete the resort under the Fontainebleau name; it was not the start of all construction on an empty site.

The public opening

The operator’s announcement after the December 2023 celebrations records the first public guests arriving on December 13. The resort combined hotel accommodation, gaming, convention space, restaurants and entertainment within a tall, integrated development beside the Convention Center’s West Hall. The December 14 announcement date should not be mistaken for the public opening date.

The completed resort

The operating resort remains at 2777 South Las Vegas Boulevard in October 2026. Its current presentation includes rooms, dining, entertainment and the Hall of Excellence. These are later chapters in an open resort, distinct from the abandoned opening forecasts of its construction years. The retained historical May 2026 photograph shows the completed lobby and registration area, not the tower exterior or an earlier casino.

  1. The Fontainebleau brand’s separate origins

  2. Construction and the 2009 interruption

  3. The earlier construction years

  4. The Drew development announcement

  5. The unfinished property’s 2021 acquisition

  6. The renewed construction ceremony

  7. The announcement after public opening

  8. The continuing resort

  9. The mapped resort area

  10. The dated photograph

What remains uncertain

  • The Drew was an announced development plan, not a separately operating predecessor casino. Earlier predicted opening dates are not treated as actual openings.
  • The current resort is distinct from Fontainebleau Miami Beach and from the former Riviera across the street. Earlier El Rancho and Algiers grounds require a separately qualified site sequence; this marker does not map their former buildings.
  • The 2021 construction ceremony marked renewed completion work, not the first construction on the site.
  • The historical photograph is a dated interior lobby view; the main illustration shows the tower and podium. The map marks a representative resort building area, not the exact photographed standing position, entrance or full grounds.

This site through time

Replaced El Rancho Hotel and Casino

2007

The former El Rancho grounds became part of the larger Fontainebleau development, alongside the former Algiers property. El Rancho closed in 1992 and its remaining tower was demolished in 2000; construction of the new Fontainebleau began in 2007. This was a new development on combined grounds, rather than another name for the Thunderbird/Silverbird/El Rancho resort. Fontainebleau’s public opening followed in 2023.

Historical source — Tony Illia, Architectural Record, April 1, 2011: former El Rancho and Algiers grounds, their 2000/2005 demolition, and Fontainebleau construction beginning in 2007. UNLV MS-00180 dates El Rancho’s 1992 closure; Fontainebleau’s December 14, 2023 developer announcement records its actual December 13 public opening.

  • The relationship date marks construction of the replacement, not casino operation. The combined Fontainebleau grounds are not asserted to match the original El Rancho footprint; no surviving historical tower or entrance is implied.
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