Opening of Drew Las Vegas pushed back until 2022

New York developer Steve Witkoff has pushed back the former Fontainebleau’s opening date, delaying the debut of Las Vegas’ towering monument to the recession.

Witkoff’s namesake firm announced Tuesday that the 67-story Drew Las Vegas is slated to open in the second quarter of 2022.

That follows his announcement early last year that the blue-tinted hotel-casino – one of the tallest buildings in Las Vegas – was scheduled to debut in late 2020.

In an interview Monday at the property, Witkoff told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his group put together a contracting package that guarantees the owners’ construction pricing and schedule, and he indicated it took a while to finalize because his group put a lot of work into the Drew’s design.

Witkoff, founder of the Witkoff Group, said the project’s total cost comes to $3.1 billion. That sum includes the $600 million purchase price, around $1.2 billion in physical construction costs and “hundreds of millions of dollars” in pre-opening expenses.

He also said it would have cost a lot more to develop the north Strip resort from the ground-up than to finish the partially built structure, and that Las Vegas has “one of the healthiest” hotel markets in the country, with little new supply since the recession.

The Drew will feature 3,780 rooms, as well as retail, nightlife, and more than 550,000 square feet of convention and meeting space, according to the news release.

“This was a chance to buy something and build at a huge discount to what it cost to build new,” Witkoff said.

The Fontainebleau’s original developers broke ground in 2007 and expected to finish in 2009. But the economy crashed, and the project instead went bankrupt in 2009.

Billionaire Carl Icahn bought the mothballed tower in 2010 for around $150 million. After leaving it largely untouched, he sold it in August 2017 to Witkoff and Miami real estate firm New Valley, a subsidiary of cigarette maker the Vector Group.

In February 2018, Witkoff unveiled the Fontainebleau’s new name and expected opening date, saying the property would debut Marriott International’s Edition brand in Las Vegas and feature the Strip’s first JW Marriott.

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