When you think of Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the Strip, you think of skyscrapers glistening, over-the-top casinos, and tourist-filled sidewalks, however, the south edge of the corridor is much quieter.
The colossal buildings of Mandalay Bay and Luxor are on the west side of the street, and the east side has some low-slung motel buildings, a boarded-up tavern, and a never-finished Ferris wheel project. The south end of the Strip is still in flux.
A new hotel called Dream has been developed by Las Vegas developer Bill Shopoff. Last week, he stated that construction work had “fully stopped” on the hotel-casino project, as the owners’ stalled financing plans left them owing tens of millions of dollars. He went on to say construction “will restart once the terms of the financing are finalized.”
Last Thursday, a judge approved the sale of the boarded-up former White Sands Motel property, across from the Luxor, to a North Dakota tribal nation for $10.25 million.
The parcel is narrow, 1.1 acres, and surrounded on three sides by the former Route 91 Harvest festival site, which was purchased last year by the tribal group also known as Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
Many areas of Southern Nevada have seen big real estate plans come and go over the years, just like the south end of the Strip. In Las Vegas, investors have by no means stopped buying real estate, and in true Vegas fashion, it’s anyone’s guess what the area will look like in the years ahead.
Dream, which broke ground last year, is building a 531-room resort on Las Vegas Boulevard just south of Russell Road. This hotel would offer a smaller, boutique-style experience in a corridor dominated by hotel casinos with thousands of rooms apiece.
Shopoff, the founder of Shopoff Realty Investments, said Dream’s cost would be $550 million to $575 million. He is developing the resort with David Daneshforooz, CEO of the real estate firm Contour. He indicated that closing the deal has taken longer than expected.
The quiet side of the southern Strip still has activity. It includes some retail space, a wedding chapel, and two sizable projects that opened over the past decade: a Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership in 2014 and the Pinball Hall of Fame arcade in 2021.
For now, the immediate future of this end of the comic strip remains a guessing game.
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