Clark County commissioners have unanimously approved plans for a 752-room hotel-casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip, paving the way for redevelopment of the long-abandoned SkyVue Ferris wheel site across from Mandalay Bay.
Developer Eli Applebaum acquired the nearly 12-acre property this spring for $70 million from owners who had obtained the site through bankruptcy proceedings.
The planned resort will feature a heart-shaped hotel tower with a large LED facade, a covered pedestrian plaza inspired by the Fremont Street Experience, a midair restaurant built around the remaining SkyVue concrete towers, restaurants, retail space, an outdoor recreation area and a parking garage.
The project will redevelop a site that has remained largely vacant for more than a decade after the SkyVue observation wheel project stalled because of financial difficulties. The unfinished support towers, known locally as the “matchsticks,” will be reinforced and incorporated into the new development rather than demolished.
Nancy Amundsen, a land-use consultant representing Applebaum, described the structures as “two matchsticks, as we call them.”
Amundsen said she had held discussions with neighboring operator MGM Resorts International, whose Mandalay Bay resort sits across Las Vegas Boulevard from the site.
“They just want something to happen,” she said, referring to the property’s long-delayed redevelopment.
Applebaum had initially proposed an 874-room resort but reduced the building’s height by about 60 feet after coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration and Clark County’s Department of Aviation to secure approval. The change reduced the room count to 752.
Amundsen said the remaining SkyVue towers would be strengthened and supported by an additional pillar to accommodate the planned sky restaurant, a move that would “hopefully make it look a little nicer” than the unfinished structures currently on the site.
The original SkyVue project proposed a more than $100 million development featuring a 500-foot observation wheel, roller coaster, retail and restaurant space. The project was announced in 2011, but construction halted after financial problems prevented its completion.
Former SkyVue developer Howard Bulloch previously said the property had been “in escrow numerous times,” but prospective buyers “were just not able to arrange their financing as they had promised.”
The zoning-related approvals for Applebaum’s project were passed unanimously by the Clark County Commission.