Lest anyone think that Las Vegas hotels are losing their love of shock and awe tactics, now comes the news that Vegas is about to be home to the world’s biggest hotel - The tentatively named ‘Edge Las Vegas’.

Its planned to be a 6,745 room hotel and casino complex on 60 acres off the Las Vegas strip, at the Harmon and Koval intersection, formerly the site for the Las Ramblas project and also a planned and cancelled W hotel.

The latest promoter attempting to build a gigantic hotel on this star-crossed property is Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev’s AFI Group, which develops and owns commercial and residential properties in countries across the world from Israel to Russia, and has a big presence in the U.S., with stakes in properties in New York, Florida, California and Arizona. And now in Nevada.

Their website describes the Edge project as a three phase undertaking, and will include several hotels, over 1,000,000 square feet of retail space, and a state-of-the-art convention center.  

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has more details on the project. The project would have four high-rise towers. Reuters reported in July 2007 that Africa Israel had taken a 49 percent stake in the project, with the remaining stake split between financial firm Credit Suisse, previous land owners Edge Group, and a New York-based partnership between developers Steve Witkoff and the Cipriani. Plans for Las Ramblas, which was tied to actor George Clooney, and then the $2.5 billion W Las Vegas, which was canceled in May 2007, were approved for the site. Neither was built.

Question now is, in the middle of one of the bigest recessions the world has ever seen, will the world’s biggest hotel be able to break the jinx of this plot, where project after mega-project has been announced and then promptly cancelled?

Posted on January 7th, 2009 by Thomas
Filed under: Hotels