Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Wynn Resorts buying site of former New Frontier on Strip

Strip Construction: Alon Las Vegas

Steve Marcus

A view of the former New Frontier casino site Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015, on Las Vegas Boulevard South.

Wynn Resorts announced today it is buying 38 acres of land on the Strip across from the Wynn Las Vegas and the Encore. Most of the land — 34 acres — is on the site of the never-realized Alon casino project, where the New Frontier once stood.

According to a news release, Wynn Resorts will pay $336 million for the property. The statement did not spell out what it plans to do with the land.

“We have no more details,” said Michael Weaver, chief marketing officer for Wynn Resorts.

The company earlier this year announced plans for a new casino-resort on the Wynn Golf course property behind its existing Strip casinos.

The latest purchase gives Wynn a footprint that stretches from Paradise Road on the east, near the Las Vegas Convention Center, to Industrial Road on the west.

Phil Ruffin, owner of Treasure Island, bought the Frontier from the Elardi family in 1997 for $165 million, with plans to build a $700 million San Francisco-themed resort. He then changed course and proposed a $2 billion Swiss-themed resort called the Montreux, which would house the Montreux Jazz Festival and an observation wheel.

Ruffin, however, never pulled the trigger on the project and in 2007, he sold the property for $1.24 billion to the El Ad Group, an Israeli firm with plans to build a $6 billion Strip resort that would be called The Plaza. El Ad imploded the New Frontier but couldn’t secure the financing to replace it.

In 2014, El Ad sold the land to for $280 million to Crown Resorts, with plans to build the Alon resort. In December 2016, Crown abandoned the project and announced it would sell the land.