How Is Wynn Las Vegas Doing?

Loews Coming To Lake Las Vegas

Rick Garman, Vegas4Visitors.com

UPDATED: 10:52 am CDT June 7, 2005

It usually takes three months for the public to find out how a new Vegas hotel is doing, but several less-than-stellar media stories about the opening of Wynn Las Vegas seems to have brought about an early release of numbers.

If there were any nervous investors, they can relax, apparently. In the first 34 days of operation, the hotel brought in about $4 million a day, with gaming bringing in over $64 million and non-gaming (shows, restaurants, hotel room rates) ka-chinging more than $74 million. That last part is important. Average room rates in the first month of the hotel's operation have exceeded $300 per night, higher than anyone thought they would be (except for me, of course). Those rooms were full 91 perecnt of the time.

These are terrific numbers, to be sure, and just about everyone admits the averages will come down once the excitement of the new hotel opening wears off. But even at half these numbers, the hotel would still be a success.

Meanwhile, a report in the Las Vegas Review Journal indicated Steve Wynn is not stopping with Wynn Las Vegas or the $1.4 billion Encore, slated for a 2008 opening next door. Those two hotels and the golf course only use up a fraction of the land that used to be home to the Desert Inn, and Wynn is reportedly looking at building out the other 135 acres with a $4 billion urban village of hotels, condos, shopping, entertainment and recreation facilities. A 2010 opening date has been rumored.

Lake Las Vegas already has a Ritz-Carlton and an upscale Hyatt, but in 2008 the area will be able to boast the first Loews Hotel in Nevada.

The upscale resort will be built just opposite the Ritz at the end of the Pontevecchio Bridge over the west end of the lake. It will feature a Mediterranean theme with 400 rooms, 40 high-end condos and villas, a couple of restaurants, two pools, a spa, restaurants, bars, meeting space, and an exhibit center. Construction is expected to start in 2006, and the new Loews Lake Las Vegas should open in early 2008.

Fans of Nickelodeon's favorite underwater creature have reason to journey to Vegas with the opening of the new SpongeBob SquarePants 4-D Ride at the Adventuredome Theme Park at Circus Circus.

The adventure begins with a five-minute pre-show video introducing SpongeBob and his friends. Guests then enter the simulation theater with 18 motion-based seats. Riders join SpongeBob as he chases a runaway pickle to create the perfect "crabby patty." The nearly five-minute ride features SpongeBob and his nemesis, Plankton, battling for the pickle and the rights to the delicacy through a series of zany underwater escapades. Throughout the entire ride, guests experience new 4-D technology that has just been added to the SimEx-Iwerks Theater inside the Adventuredome. Included are water squirts, bubbles and vibration.

Admission to Adventuredome is free, with the SpongeBob ride costing $6. Some smaller rides cost $4.

Every summer, the Cannery serves up some good eats, good music and good beer at the Blues, Brews, and Barbecue Festival. This year is no exception.

Back for the third year, the festival will feature music from John Lee Hooker Jr. and Moody Scott as the headliners, with a variety of blues bands playing throughout the two-day event.

You'll be able to sample from various craft and locally brewed beers and hard ciders, including brews from New Belgium, St. Pauli Girl, Grolsch USA, Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, Spaten, Pabst, Chimay, Lindenmen's, Thomas Kemper Soda, Wyders Cider, Pyramid, Scottish and Newcastle. Can't decide? Try the "Brews Sampler Pack" -- pay a one-time fee of $20 and then use coupons to receive 10 8-ounce cups of any beer or cider you choose.

Notable local barbecue restaurants will be serving food on the festival grounds including Sweet Georgia Brown's, Seven Seas Seafood Restaurant, The Donne Tree Island Style BBQ, Memphis Championship Barbecue and more.

The festival hours are from 5 p.m. to midnight June 17 and 2 p.m. to midnight June 18. Admission is $5.

The Hard Rock pool and beach area just got a little more exclusive -- and undoubtedly a little more pretty.

MTV has launched its "Summer on the Strip" programming block, featuring many of its hit shows broadcasting from various locations around Sin City. Gwen Stefani, the Black Eyed Peas and shakira were a few of the celebrity performers on hand for the Hard Rock kick-off. Total Request Live, Direct Effect, and Weekend Dime are just a few of the network's shows that are going to have special Vegas versions, and you can expect a lot of shots of really good looking young people, dancing scantily dressed around a pool somewhere.

For more information on the programming, visit MTV.com.

As if you needed more proof that Las Vegas is one of the most wonderfully wacky cities on the globe: Check out this juicy bit of gossip: Ivana Trump is trying to trump her former husband, Donald.

The ex-wife of the real-estate tycoon and reality TV star has lent her name to a proposed 73-story condominium complex being built across Sahara Avenue from the Sahara Hotel and Casino on Las Vegas Boulevard.

The Ivana, as it will apparently be known, is slated to be nine stories higher than the Trump International project getting ready for construction just down the street. The Donald had no comment on the announcement, but some of his associates on the Vegas project were happy to jump into the fray, suggesting that other Ivana monikered condo projects have been announced but never actually built.

If the construction crews do move in, it won't surprise anyone to hear that Donald revised his plans to make the Trump towers 74 stories high.