The Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino is now open for business after 16 years of development. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

A landmark day

The Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino resort is finally open for business. The project has been in development since 2007, with the Great Recession and the pandemic causing significant disruption to plans.

Justin Timberlake and Keith Urban both performed

This property opened on Wednesday to the general public not long before midnight. A party took place to mark the occasion, in which Justin Timberlake and Keith Urban both performed. Other celebrities attended too, including legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady and veteran actor Sylvester Stallone.

Fontainebleau President Mark Tricano expressed his excitement at seeing the look on peoples’ faces when they visited the property for the first time. He believes that the attention that went into designing the public spaces will make for a unique visitor experience.

An impressive property

The Fontainebleau is now Nevada’s highest occupiable building, coming in at 735 feet and 67 floors. The STRAT Hotel is still the state’s highest structure, its observation tower reaching 1,149 feet.

The newly opened Strip property has 3,644 hotel rooms, a 150,000-square-foot casino, as well as a day club, a night club, seven pools, a spa, and 36 bars and restaurants combined. It is located on the north end of the Strip and is close to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Developers built the Fontainebleau on the former site of the El Rancho hotel which was demolished in 2000. The new resort will reportedly employ more than 7,000 people.

The Fontainebleau has accepted reservations for several months now and the price of a room on opening night started at $300.

This is the first major new casino resort to open in Las Vegas since the Resorts World in June 2021, a time when the city was still struggling with the effects of the pandemic.

A long time coming

Plans to develop the Fontainebleau first went public in 2005 and the ground-breaking ceremony took place in 2007. The company behind the project went bankrupt in 2009 when the project was about 70% complete, leading to many years of dormancy.

Fontainebleau Resorts Founder Jeffrey Soffer took back control in February 2021

The ownership of the project changed numerous times over the years and it came full circle when the original developer Fontainebleau Resorts Founder Jeffrey Soffer took back control in February 2021, in partnership with Koch Real Estate Investments.

Soffer’s firm also owns the Fontainebleau luxury hotel in Miami Beach, open since 1954.