Fontainebleau Las Vegas Sets Opening Date

Posted on: September 15, 2023, 07:26h. 

Last updated on: October 22, 2024, 09:28h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas will open Wednesday, Dec. 13, owners of the resort announced on Monday morning. Reservations are now open for stays at fontainebleaulasvegas.com.

The 67-story tower, the tallest building in Nevada, will be the first new casino resort to open on the Las Vegas strip since Resorts World debuted in June 2021. It will sport 3,644 hotel rooms and over half a million square feet of convention and meeting space, with its primary exhibition room spanning 105,200 square feet.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas
An artist rendering of Fontainebleau, the Las Vegas Strip,  venue whose opening day is rumored to be Dec. 13. (Image: Fontainebleau)

“For almost 70 years, the Fontainebleau brand has challenged boundaries and expectations,” CEO Jeffrey Soffer said in a news release. “With Fontainebleau Las Vegas, we have transcended aspiration and set the stage for a new era of luxury hospitality defined by innovation, sophistication, and opulence, with an inextricable link to our roots at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach.”

Located on the demolished El Rancho Hotel and Casino site, the Fontainebleau was initially announced in May 2005 with a projected opening of 2008. Those plans fell victim to the Great Recession and COVID-19.

Carl Icahn purchased the project out of bankruptcy in 2010 but never restarted construction. The Witkoff Group purchased the property in 2017, renaming it The Drew. But its plans ran headlong into the pandemic shutdown, and the project was sold back to Fontainebleau Development, and Koch Real Estate Investments, for an undisclosed price in 2021. The project is reported to have cost $3.7 billion.

Gaming On

Fontainebleau will be a vertically integrated casino resort, much like the Cosmopolitan, with its ground floor dedicated to gaming and its second and third to retail and dining.

Previously reported plans for its 150,000 square-foot casino floor call for 1,300 slots — including multigame machines with video poker, keno, and blackjack.

The casino’s 127 table games will feature blackjack and three-card poker. Its sportsbook will be around 13,000 square feet.

Its high-limit room will be among Las Vegas’ largest at 18,000 square feet.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas
An artist rendering of a small portion of the Fontainebleau’s 90,000 square feet of retail space. (Image: Fontainebleau Las Vegas)

Retail, Dining & Nightlife

Fontainebleau is expected to open with most of its 90,000 square feet retail space leased to 35 high-end retailers. No word yet on which stores will be included.

Its 36 equally high-end dining options are will include Chef Evan Funke’s Italian restaurant Mother Wolf, the American restaurant Vida, the Chef Alan Yau Chinese restaurants Chyna Club and Washing Potato, the La Fontaine French eatery from Chef Laetitia Rouabah, Don’s Prime, the Asian-inspired barbequery KYU, Chef Kevin Kim’s Ito Omakase, and — as per Casino.org’s own Vital Vegas blog — Papi Steak, the third outpost of the Southeast Asia restaurant Komodo, and Cantina Contramar, a Mexican concept from celebrated chef Gabriela Cámara.

The venue will also sport three entertainment venues — a day club, a nightclub called LIV, and an 3,800-capacity theater, all booked by the Miami-based Groot Hospitality and its nightlife guru, David Grutman.

According to Vital Vegas, a small army of executive talent poached by Fontainebleau from Resorts World has already helped lure superstar DJs Tiesto and Zedd away from Resorts World’s Zouk Group.

On the third-floor roof, the resort’s pool deck will situate seven different pool experiences across six acres, with an additional 2,300 square feet of gaming space.

Fontainebleau will have a six-acre pool deck. (Image: Fontainebleau Las Vegas)

Staffing Up

Fontainebleau Las Vegas is looking for as many as 6,500 new employees in advance of its opening, 1,500 of whom management hopes to meet during a five-day food, beverage, and nightlife job fair starting on Monday, Sept. 25.

The hiring event will be held at Vū Las Vegas’ production campus at 901 Grier Dr., south of Sunset Road. (Click here for information.)

Hirees will begin their Fontainebleau tenure with the right to choose whether to join the Culinary Workers Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165, the unions representing 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno. The culinary union announced on Friday that it reached a “card check neutrality agreement” with the resort.

For the grand opening, singer Justin Timberlake is expected to throw a private, VIP-only show before doors to the resort open to the public.