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| Echelon: Preview Information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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When Boyd Gaming announced plans to tear down The Stardust and build a $5 billion complex of hotels, casinos, and entertainment venues in its place, the grand opening date was set for early 2010. Echelon, as it was to be called, would've been the crown jewel in the company's portfolio of properties that includes Downtown favorites like Main Street Station and The Fremont.
But then a little thing called a global economic meltdown came along, two of the partners in the development went bankrupt, and the folks at Boyd decided that maybe it wasn't the best time to open a $5 billion gamble in the hot Nevada desert. So they shuttered the construction site in 2008, leaving 87 acres of dirt, cranes, and the steel shells of what was to come. When they did so, the party line wasn't "we're stopping entirely," rather "we're delaying for a little while." Various date ranges were thrown around but most assumed the work would start again sometime in 2009. Or maybe 2010. Certainly no later than 2011. Take a look at your calendar and then take a look at the fact that work has not resumed yet. During a 2009 investor call, officials with Boyd Gaming announced they would not restart construction on Echelon for three to five years. For those of you that can't possibly do math in your head, that means sometime between 2012 and 2014. And that's just to get the work going again. It'll take another two to three years beyond that to actually build the place. What the place will be is also a big question mark. When originally announced, the property was going to have five hotels: a 2,300 room main hotel with a 140,000 square-foot casino; a 650 all-suite hotel; a Las Vegas branch of high-end Asian hotelier Shangri-La with 350 rooms; an 860 room Mondrian (a big name in Los Angeles); and a 550 room Delano. In addition there was going to be more than 30 restaurants, nightclubs, bars, and lounges; two theaters; and a 300,000 square-foot shopping mall. However, the companies that were to contribute money and manage both the mall and the Mondrian and Delano hotels went bankrupt and now will not be part of Echelon when it finally opens. That's a problem, of course, but perhaps not as much of a problem as the fact that they started construction on a property with those things included. Many analysts believe that once Boyd is finally read to get the project going again, they may need to radically alter what they have already put in the ground, which is only going to add more time to the project. Do I hear 2020? Further complicating matters is the money situation. Boyd Gaming secured about $2 billion in credit for the project before the economy tanked. Now that money is sitting there burning a hole in their proverbial pocket and they seem eager to spend it. Boyd tried (and failed) to snap up several of the Stations Casinos out of bankruptcy and are now looking for other options in other places so they can spend their money. Whether or not they'll be able to get those billions back from somewhere to be able to complete Echelon is a huge question mark. So get used to seeing a big pile of dirt and a partially built hotel on the north end of The Strip. It's going to be there for a long, long time.
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