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Caesars Entertainment details The Linq project featuring observation wheel
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COURTESY RENDERING
Caesars Entertainment renderings show The Linq, a proposed $550 million shopping and entertainment complex, which would sit across the street from Caesars Palace, occupying the alley between O’Sheas and the Flamingo.
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Courtesy Rendering
The observation wheel would include 40-passenger, enclosed sphere cabins.
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Jessica Ebelhar/Las Vegas Review-Journal
The proposed site for The Linq, which would occupy the alley between O’Sheas and the Flamingo on the Las Vegas Strip, as it looks today. » Buy this photo
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JESSICA EBELHAR/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Caesars Entertainment Wednesday unveiled plans for The Linq, a proposed $550 million shopping and entertainment complex. » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Aug. 18, 2011 | 7:42 a.m.
Back in the day, The Linq would have been considered an amenity to a multibillion-dollar Strip hotel-casino development.
That was before the bottom dropped out of the Las Vegas economy.
Caesars Entertainment Corp. executives said Wednesday that they agree with assessments from analysts that Las Vegas does not need another hotel-casino at this time.
That theory is the primary driver behind The Linq, a $550 million outdoor retail, dining and entertainment district patterned after The Grove in Los Angeles and anchored by the world's tallest observation wheel.
Executives from Caesars unveiled various aspects and construction plans for The Linq during a briefing in the Pure Nightclub at Caesars Palace.
In addition, the Imperial Palace will be renamed, renovated and rethemed as part of the development. The tiny O'Sheas casino will be demolished and become part of the reconfigured Imperial Palace.
Caesars Entertainment Senior Vice President Jan Jones touted The Linq as the first new Las Vegas development announced since the economy crashed in 2007. It's also the first new construction project on the Strip since The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas opened in December .
Caesars operates 10 Strip-area casinos. Offering new entertainment options and attractions keeps the Strip vibrant for the visitors filling the city's 150,000 hotel rooms, Jones said.
For a brief moment Wednesday, Jones channeled her former job as the two-term mayor of Las Vegas.
"We don't need another big box," Jones said. "Las Vegas needs a new experience. We live here, and we see all the headlines about the economy and unemployment. But to the rest of the world, we're Las Vegas. We're the entertainment capital of the world, and they expect something like Linq from us."
The project will be built along a private street that separates the Flamingo and Imperial Palace starting at the Strip and heading back to Audrie Street and Ida Avenue, which will be converted from public to private streets.
Caesars officials hope The Linq, which will employ 3,000 construction workers at its height in the middle of next year, spurs additional development.
The Linq's centerpiece is the 550-foot observation ("don't call it a Ferris") wheel, dubbed the Las Vegas High Roller. The structure is 9 feet taller than the Singapore Flyer and 107 feet taller than the London Eye. With 28 enclosed, transparent sphere cabins that hold up to 40 passengers each, the wheel can transport an estimated 2,240 passenger per hour. It will take 30 minutes to make one revolution on the wheel.
Caesars' executives they anticipate charging less than $20 per person to ride the observation wheel, and the first riders are expected to board sometime in 2013.
"Our observation wheel will provide a memorable experience soaring over the skyline of Strip," said Gary Miller, Caesars' senior vice president of development.
Other details revealed about The Linq included the following:
■ Miller said The Linq is fully funded by Caesars Entertainment through financing efforts. "The money is in the bank." The Linq will create about 1,500 permanent jobs.
■ The Linq will have 30 to 40 retail, dining and entertainment attractions in a 200,000 square foot open-air marketplace. About 70 percent of the mix will be restaurants and bars.
Paul Kurzawa, chief operating officer of Los Angeles-based Caruso Affiliated, which is developing the retail area, said discussions have taken place with several restaurant operators and retail businesses, all of which would be new to Las Vegas.
"There is a tremendous amount of interest in Las Vegas," Kurzawa said, adding that he didn't believe the company would have any trouble filling the retail space.
■ Construction will bring upgrades to three of Caesars' properties: the Flamingo, Imperial Palace and O'Sheas.
The Flamingo will receive a new pedestrian entrance that connects the casino with The Linq.
The current O'Sheas will demolished, and a new location will be rebuilt about 150 feet to the east within the Imperial Palace. Rick Mazer, who is president of Harrah's Las Vegas, Flamingo, Imperial Place, Bill's Gamblin' Hall & Saloon and O'Sheas, said the casino's employees would be folded into the Flamingo.
Meanwhile, the Imperial Palace will be transformed with a new facade, porte cochere, and hotel reception area. The casino will be remodeled.
Mazer said a new name has yet to be determined. The company is leasing the Imperial Palace name, and that lease expires next year.
Caesars, when it was known as Harrah's Entertainment, acquired the Imperial Palace in 2005 for $370 million. It was thought at the time the company would demolish the hotel-casino as part of a redevelopment on the east side of the Strip.
However, the tanking economy forced the company to change plans.
The Linq is not the only planned observation wheel.
Developer Howard Bulloch said earlier this month he's moving forward on his $300 million Skyvue project, which is planned for the south end of the Strip across from Mandalay Bay.
Bulloch said he was still in the process of lining up financing for the development.
Contact reporter Howard Stutz at hstutz@reviewjournal. com or 702-477-3871. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
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Vegas used to be a fun city to visit. We averaged one visit every 6 weeks. I remember playing $5 slots at the MGM and playing for hours, usually losing in the end, but having a great time. Today we have reduced our visits to perhaps 2-3 a year. We still get free rooms, butfood prices are too high. Vegas casinos have become a mass of bars and restaurants. Slot machines are tight. The last trip I played $100 in a $5 Double Diamond and got 20 pulls without so much as a cherry. The streets are clogged with young drinkers, carrying 24 inch high drink glasses and behavinng like riff raff. This is one more development Vegas doesn't need. We do most of our playing in California at Indian casinos, our money lasts a lot longer, food excellent and rooms are usually free and nice. Ill behavioris not tolerated. Sorry, Vegas, you are no longer at the top of our trip list.
Another bad idea for Vegas, and dont get me wrong.. I love this town.. but moving away from Gambling into making it more like Los Angles, is sure to fail and fail HARD.
I got 50 bucks says in 4 years after its opened, its a ghost town like Neonopolis.
My wife and I come out there every 2 or 3 years and we love it. To me it depends how it will be presented to the strip or what will be the orientation to the strip be. We will not however be going up in it, but I was wondering who will have the barf bag concession I want in.
It will be used in Fantastic Four part 3... remember part 2 when they were in Europe and stopped the big wheel from falling? I wonder how old Jessica Alba will be on completion. I SAY BUILD THE WHEEL!! Wheeee!!!
Can't wait, this is what we need, all you Vegas Hater can move back to where you came from..
Visitor- You seem to misunderstand most of the comments. I think almost everybody here is happy that there is some construction, but we want something that will be long lasting and as popular as possible. The ferris wheel is a good idea, in the right location. Across the street in the large open area of Caesars would have been better. There you get a true Strip view, which will attract more people. I know that they put it where they did so that people would walk thru their "Entertainment Complex", just like when stores put the Pharmacy in the back. However, it could have been a lot better if it was placed in a more "prime" location with a real view. Where it is, I won't bother.
They don't need to charge for this, they can just dial Blackjack down to 5.5/5 from 6/5. The idiots and addicts will still play
GARY D wrote on August 18, 2011 09:08 AM: They need to put a "TARGET" on the ferris wheel ---- I wonder if these brain-deads have considered how close this will be to McCarran's runway 1L / 19R ??? ===> The "SkyVue" that was to be built across from Mandalay Bay would be a hazard to McCarran even if the FAA doesn't think so; "Linq" would be somewhat near the approach to 19R but it's far enough west that the few flights using 19R/1L shouldn't be affected.
Ah, the battle of the Big Ferris Wheels has begun. I wonder which one will start construction, if any? The Caesars' project says it already has the funds so it's possible that one will be built. I won't hold my breath on the one to be situated across from the Mandalay Bay seeing as how funding is still being arranged.
Nothing makes any of you happy. You complain because there are no jobs now you are going to be given some jobs and you are still complaining about what it's going to look like, what you will see when you ride it. blah blah blah. If you don't like it don't use it. Nothing pleases any of the bloggers who comment on any story in this paper. I'm glad the only part of Vegas I see when I come there is the strip and the visitors. At least they like life.