Genting To Introduce Resorts World with Chinese Pageantry on LV Strip

Posted on: July 1, 2013, 05:30h. 

Last updated on: October 19, 2015, 07:24h.

Katie Barlowe Read More

With Siegfried and Roy’s white tiger show long dormant, the Mirage’s dolphins a bit ho-hum, and the shark tank at Mandalay Bay long-established , what can Vegas – always known for pushing the theatrical envelope – do for an encore?

How about pandas?

If China-based Genting Group has their way, pandas will be just part of the over-the-top showmanship coming to their new casino-hotel Resorts World.

But the really crazy part is, it’s all coming before a single brick goes up on the property.

Pardon Our Mess

The introductory whoopla is actually right in line with a new Las Vegas Strip credo: don’t show your mess before or during build out.

It all started during the past few years, as abandoned, half-built casino projects like the Echelon – which is now waiting to be morphed into Resorts World – and the Fountainbleau stood as eye sores and brutal testimony to the crashed economy.

Still awaiting approval, Genting plans to put up temporary construction fences around the site with a sound system to blast music.

The classic wooden construction walls will be decorated with Chinese art and, of course, renderings of the property to come.

In addition, two preview centers – which will be part of the finished project – will showcase the Chinese theme and have pagoda roofs. Get it yet? We’re going with a Chinese theme here, folks, and subtlety is not part of the Las Vegas zeitgeist.

“It will complement the Strip,” says Clark County commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. “It’s kind of a unique approach.”

Great Things to Come

The “what’s-to-come” preview is apparently indicative of Genting’s flair for the over-the top; Resorts World Las Vegas will have its own replica Great Wall of China, besides the live pandas, all to the tune of some $2 to $7 billion, we are told.

Quite a range in anticipated costs; we can’t help but wonder why.

The preview project alone is said to run over $2 million.