Bellagio Plans Major Retail and Restaurant Expansion

By Scott Roeben, on July 01 2024
3 min read 19 comments
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Bellagio has submitted plans for a major expansion of its retail and restaurant offerings.

The expansion project is being referred to as “Project Mojave.” Mojave is a shortened form of “Hamakhaave,” which means “beside the water.” Which we definitely knew off the top of our head.

The new addition to Bellagio will run from the hotel’s main entrance, along the walkway to Las Vegas Boulevard. The fountains won’t be affected, so don’t freak out.

Love Bellagio? You’re about to get more of it.

The plans submitted to Clark County (wherein the Las Vegas Strip sits) get into the granular details of the project.

First rule of Vegas: Leave no square foot unmonetized.

We’d give you more details about Project Mojave, but the county’s Web site is FUBAR at the moment. We like to leave some sloppy seconds for the Las Vegas Review-Journal to confirm, anyway.

We did get our hands on some renderings, so there’s that.

The architect on the project is Marnell Architecture, a well-known entity in these here parts. Marnell Companies was founded in 1982, and the company has had its hand in a number of major Las Vegas casinos. Marnell Co. built the Rio, Mirage and, yes, Bellagio (technically, Marnell Corrao Associates).

Oh, look, a new place for visitors to complain about the prices of things.

Essentially, MGM Resorts is going to monetize what is currently idle space.

The bridge from Las Vegas Boulevard to the Bellagio’s main entrance used to have a people-mover. Now, not so much.

Bellagio skybridge
In the era of margins, leisurely strolls are frowned upon.

There’s a good amount of foot traffic along this stretch that isn’t being exploited, so this new project looks to remedy that.

Here’s a look at the existing floor plan, featuring a lot of not much.

Yawnville.

Here’s what’s in store with Project Mojave. In the vernacular of retail design and development, it’s a “metric shit-ton more.”

Somebody’s been talking to the “Reveneers” at Disney. They’re like “Imagineers,” but for revenue. If you don’t think those exist, you need to get out more.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but a straight line isn’t always the most beneficial to the bottom line.

Guests will now be herded through a collection of retail shops, along with at least five new food and beverage venues (orange in the images, above and below).

It looks like a 10,000-square-foot venue will be on the rooftop overlooking The Strip and the ever-glorious Bellagio fountains, so LFG.

Let’s eat, drink and look at shoes we can’t afford.

Once the county gets its act together, we should know more about a potential timeline and budget for the project. The over/under is $80 million. We’re betting construction won’t start until after F1 in November 2024.

In May 2023, MGM Resorts bought 1.62 acres of land between Bellagio and The Cosmopolitan for $54 million. The Mojave Project proposal makes it clear why MGM was ready to fork over big bucks for the tiny sliver of land—infrastructure and access for deliveries.

It’s not the size of your parcel, it’s what you do with it.

Here’s one more angle of Project Mojave at Bellagio.

If you use this color palette correctly, you can walk through the new Bellagio promenade and be completely invisible.

The paperwork we’ve seen doesn’t show a name for what this Bellagio enhancement will be called, but we’re rooting for “Bellagio Interactive and Immersive Experience Collective Promenade and the Such.”

Fingers crossed.