The Plaza, a hotel brand known throughout the world, enters the Las Vegas gaming and hospitality market on the shattered corpse of one of the Strip’s grand old ladies – the New Frontier. Long known as a hold-out against creeping unionization on the Strip, the Frontier has long-since been surpassed by more modern and glitzy casino properties.  Few of the original Strip properties – the ones that played host to the Rat Pack and early Elvis – are left, and they struggle to remain viable by catering to down-market strip visitors while the Wynn, the Venetian, the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and the Monte Carlo now cater to the big-budget high-rolling jet-setters who still flock to Vegas as the “Major Leagues” of high-ticket gaming.  In the face of that competition, the Frontier’s acreage was ultimately more valuable than the 16-story gaming facility itself.

               While traditionalists bemoan the loss of one more piece of “historic” Las Vegas, realists know that the city will survive and grow only by offering the newest, the glitziest and the best entertainment options to gamers and conventioneers who have a growing number of casino-city options across the nation and Internationally.  And, from a construction perspective, the demolition of aging properties – then the building of new mega-resorts – spells new business for contractors and long-term job security for skilled construction workers in all specialties.  For Las Vegas, at least, “Growth (to paraphrase Gordon Gecko in “Wall Street”) is good.”

               New York-based ELAD Group and Israel-based IDB Group have partnered on this new Plaza resort casino venture, and jointly will be known as ELAD IDB Las Vegas, LLC. The multi-billion-dollar project will be the first of its kind in Las Vegas for the company, and it will also be the first of many planned Plaza gaming ventures. Once completed, The Plaza is set to be the second largest private real estate development in the world.  A tribute to Las Vegas’ never-ending growth, the world’s largest private real estate development is MGM’s Casino Center, located a mile down the Strip from the site of the former New Frontier.

               "The new project will exude the same elegance and grandeur that The Plaza in New York is known for according to Isaac Tshuva, owner of ELAD Group and The Plaza in New York.  "The investment in the new flagship project, The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, will be estimated at $8 billion and will set the bar for new standards in the field of hospitality and entertainment. The project's expected completion is set for 2011 and, after completion, it will create at least 15,000 new jobs in Las Vegas." In the shorter term, the removal of the rubble from the old facility, and the building of this new facility is expected to create between 7,500 and 10,000 construction jobs over the next three to four years.

               The Plaza will be a multi-use property, featuring a five-star luxury hotel, private residences, retail outlets, a state-of-the-art casino, destination restaurants, an entertainment venue and a convention complex.  Excavation of the site is set to begin in the 3rd quarter 2008.