SOON DESERT INN WILL BE BARREN.Byline: Jerry Rice Jerry Lee Rice (born October 13, 1962 in Crawford, Mississippi) is a former football wide receiver in the NFL. Rice is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in NFL history, consistently showing exceptional performance and strong work ethic on and off of the field. Staff Writer Las Vegas visitors won't find the large number of construction cranes working on new mega resorts like they would have a few years ago. Still, there is plenty of activity going on behind the scenes. Most notably, casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn has announced plans to level the Desert Inn, a hotel that has seen better days, and replace it with a 59-story hotel-casino. ``The Desert Inn represents, quite simply, the most powerful opportunity on the Strip,'' Wynn says. Among the attractions planned for the 218-acre property: an art gallery, water-themed theater and a traditional showroom. When the Desert Inn opened in 1950, it had 300 rooms, a 2,400-square-foot gambling area, and was only the fifth casino on the Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip (also known as The Strip) is a 4 mi (6.7 km) section of Las Vegas Boulevard South, most of which has been designated an All-American Road. . The pricetag was $3.5 million; Wynn ponied up $270 million when he bought it in April. Part of the hotel's history includes the reclusive re·clu·sive adj. 1. Seeking or preferring seclusion or isolation. 2. Providing seclusion: a reclusive hut. billionaire Howard Hughes, who called the place home for a time in the 1960s. These days, about the only thing going for the Desert Inn is it boasts the only 18-hole championship golf course on the Strip. It will be used for an LPGA LPGA abbr. Ladies Professional Golf Association tournament in October, but expect it to close sometime next year. As for the hotel itself, Wynn was hoping to keep it open through Aug. 30. He may have trouble following through since many of the employees - faced with the impending im·pend intr.v. im·pend·ed, im·pend·ing, im·pends 1. To be about to occur: Her retirement is impending. 2. closure - have started looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. work elsewhere, as one might expect. Although the Desert Inn has grown considerably (to 715 rooms and suites and a 32,000-square-foot casino), it remains a small bet compared with what has come since (most notably the 5,005-room MGM MGM in full Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. U.S. corporation and film studio. It was formed when the film distributor Marcus Loew, who bought Metro Pictures in 1920, merged it with the Goldwyn production company in 1924 and with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1925. Grand). Speaking of the MGM Grand, the company has lined up architects to come up with designs for an ``over-the-top'' mega resort on 55 acres of land between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo resorts. Construction could begin within the next 18 months. MGM Chairman J. Terrence Lanni says major resorts have raised the bar in Las Vegas for decades, citing the opening of the posh Caesar's Palace in 1966, the Mirage in 1989 and Bellagio, which was ``over the top'' when it opened in 1998. Says Lanni: ``We need to move to the next level.'' Wire services contributed to this report. |
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