Fontainebleau Las Vegas

Fontainebleau Las Vegas opened on December 13, 2023, closing out one of the longest-running sagas in American hotel development — a $3.7 billion tower that sat topped out and empty for over a decade before finally welcoming guests. At 3,644 rooms, it is among the largest resort openings the Strip has seen in a generation, and the tallest building in Nevada.

The place

The hotel occupies 25 acres at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip, at 2777 S. Las Vegas Boulevard, next to the Las Vegas Convention Center and across from Resorts World and Circus Circus, roughly a mile south of the Wynn. It is a part of the Strip that has historically lagged the resort-dense center and south end, and Fontainebleau's arrival — alongside the convention center expansion next door — was widely read as an anchor for that stretch's revival. The 67-story tower is visible for miles along the Boulevard, a scale advantage that comes directly from the building's unusual history: its steel and glass shell was largely built out during the original 2007-2009 construction push, long before the interiors, brand or ownership were finalized.

The concept

The site was announced in 2005 by developer Jeffrey Soffer and casino executive Glenn Schaeffer, with construction starting in February 2007 on what was then a $2.9 billion project. The 2008 financial crisis stopped it cold: the project entered bankruptcy in June 2009 with the building roughly 70 percent complete and more than $2 billion already spent. Carl Icahn bought the unfinished tower out of bankruptcy in 2010 for about $150 million and left it dormant for years, a shell visible from the Strip and a running symbol of the recession's toll on Las Vegas. He sold it in 2017 to developer Steve Witkoff, who rebranded it Drew Las Vegas in partnership with Marriott and targeted a 2020s opening, only for construction to stall again during the pandemic. Soffer, the original developer, reacquired the property in February 2021 with Koch Industries' real estate arm, restored the Fontainebleau name in November 2021, and secured a $2.2 billion construction loan in December 2022 to finish the job — sixteen years after ground was first broken. That history shapes how the finished hotel reads: a vertically integrated luxury resort built for both leisure travelers and the convention trade next door, with 3,644 rooms and suites, more than 150,000 square feet of gaming space and 550,000 square feet of meeting and convention space. Interiors run to a blue-and-silver water palette with coral-pink accents, mercury-glass mirrors and brass detailing, aiming at a register closer to Miami Beach glamour — evoking the original Fontainebleau Miami Beach, which the Soffer family also controls — than to the Strip's newer, more minimalist resorts.

Dining & wellness

Fontainebleau Las Vegas opened with roughly three dozen restaurant, bar and lounge concepts, several described as first-to-market in Las Vegas, including Papi Steak and Komodo from restaurateur David Grutman. Wellness facilities center on the 55,000-square-foot, two-level Lapis Spa, with 44 treatment rooms, a sauna and steam room, alongside a 14,000-square-foot fitness center and a six-acre pool deck. A 96,500-square-foot retail district rounds out the non-gaming program.