The Mirage Las Vegas Hotel - 1st Las Vegas Mega Resort
Place Categories: Casinos, Hotels, and Travel Services
The Mirage is a 3,044-room Polynesian-themed resort located on the Las Vegas Strip, built by developer Steve Wynn and is currently operated by MGM Resorts.
The Mirage – Volcano at Night The resort is connected by a free tram to the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino neighboring the hotel’s property to the north.
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About The Mirage
The Mirage was built by developer Steve Wynn and designed by Joel Bergman and Roger Thomas. It was built on the site formerly occupied by the Castaways and prior to that, the Red Rooster Nite Club.
The resort opened on November 22, 1989, after two years of construction. It was the world’s most expensive resort, completed at a cost of $630 million. The resort was also among the world’s largest hotels.
The Mirage was the first megaresort to open on the Las Vegas Strip, and its success prompted a building boom in the 1990s for other large resorts along the Strip.
Building the Resort
The Mirage was proposed with an initial cost of $565 million. Financier Michael Milken helped finance the project by selling $525 million worth of mortgage bonds.
The Mirage was the first resort that was built with the money of Wall Street through the use of junk bonds.
The project went over budget and was the most expensive hotel-casino in history, with a construction cost of US $630 million.
The hotel’s distinctive gold windows get their color from actual gold dust used in the tinting process. The Mirage’s construction is considered noteworthy in that Wynn had set a new standard for Vegas resorts, and is widely considered to be the father of today’s Las Vegas.
Prior to The Mirage’s opening, the city was experiencing a decline in tourism that began in the 1970s, especially around the time that the state of New Jersey legalized gambling, and tourists began to frequent the casinos of Atlantic City.
Also, this was a time when Las Vegas was no longer considered a fashionable destination, so a new, high-profile, project was necessary to jump-start the ailing industry.
Wynn planned for the resort to feature boxing matches to compete against the Las Vegas Hilton and the adjacent Caesars Palace.
The Future of the Resort
In 2021, Hard Rock International announced that it would purchase the Mirage and convert it into the Hard Rock Las Vegas.
The property will receive a complete renovation which will include a new guitar-shaped hotel tower, taking the place of the volcano attraction.
The sale is expected to close in the second half of 2022, and MGM will license the “Mirage” name to Hard Rock for up to three years while renovations take place. – Source: Wikipedia
Attractions at the Resort
- Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat
- Mirage Volcano
- The Beatles LOVE
- Bare Pool Lounge
Quick Video of The Beatles LOVE
