A couple walks by the stalled Fontainebleau resort Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2015, on Las Vegas Boulevard South.
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015 | 11:09 a.m.
It’s rare on the Las Vegas Strip for an outcry to go up for someone to cover up. If anything, usually it goes the other way.
But the long-stalled Fontainebleau project is not so ordinary.
The Clark County Zoning Commission voted unanimously today for a deal by which billionaire Carl Icahn, the owner of the unfinished resort, will build an exterior wrap to hide the unfinished construction at the unfinished hotel-casino, in exchange for an extension of the time that the hotel will have to complete exterior work.
The wrap, which the Fontainebleau will have six months to complete, will consist of fabric and paint.
The Fontainebleau, one of the tallest buildings in the Valley, has long been considered an eyesore on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip.
Today’s deal won’t move the project closer to completion — according to planning documents, “the project remains on hold until the owners believe the economy has made a sufficient recovery.” But it does mean that the evidence of the skeletal structure will be harder to see.
In 2009, the 3,889-room project went into bankruptcy, remaining 30 percent unfinished. Icahn purchased the property in 2010. The Planning Commission has granted extensions since 2011 to the project to complete expensive lighting, sidewalk and other improvements.
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