Scarcity creates value. That's how collectibles, precious metals, and most certainly real estate work. That's why properties on the Las Vegas Strip have been selling for ever-higher prices.
It takes a lot of land to build a resort casino, shopping area, entertainment venue, or even an arena that can compete with what Caesars Entertainment (CZR), MGM Resorts International (MGM), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), and the other major players already offer. That land is in very limited supply as even on the more desolate north Strip, plots have been selling with plans for new casinos, hotels, and venues coming at a an ever-accelerating pace.
Las Vegas has come out of the pandemic stronger than ever before with both MGM and Caesars saying that they're either back at or even ahead of 2019 numbers (and that's with international customers and major conventions only just starting to come back.) Now, because you can only build so many things on 4.2 miles of land, two gaming industry experts shared a bold idea that could literally change the Las Vegas Strip as we know it.
Image source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet
A Longer Las Vegas Strip
For most of its recent existence, the 4.2-mile Las Vegas Strip seemed plenty long enough because most of the activity on it was clustered around the Caesars and MGM properties on the south and central Strips with Wynn acting as a sort of a gateway to the unknown on the north end.
Yes, The Strat and other properties were on the north Strip, but that area was relatively full of vacant plots and underutilized pieces of land. That has changed quite a bit over the past few years and it looks likely to change again.
Now, Resorts World has opened on the North Las Vegas Strip and Fontainebleau has gotten back on track to open in late 2023. Those two mega-resort/casinos have made the north Strip a happening location and real estate has become nearly as precious as the south and central areas where Caesars and MGM battle for dominance.
With land becoming so valuable and available plots being rare, two gaming industry experts spoke to members of NAIOP Southern Nevada, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, and suggested a pretty shocking solution -- making the Las Vegas Strip longer, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
The Las Vegas Strip Could Be Extended
UNLV Professor and MGM executive Alan Feldman and Josh Swissman, founding partner of Las Vegas-based Strategy Organization, told the crowd at the Orleans that the Strip could get longer.
"Feldman said it’s possible in the distant future that the Strip could extend south all the way to the M Resort at Las Vegas Boulevard and St. Rose Parkway," he explained.
In the more immediate future (roughly the next 10 years) "Blue Diamond Road and Warm Springs Drive could be the southern ending point of the Strip with the new resort and NBA-ready 20,000-seat arena under development by Tim Leiweke’s Oak View Group."
“If you look at the track record that Tim Leiweke and his colleagues have, I have a feeling that we’re going to see a slightly different variant, sort of Resorts World 2, at that part of the Strip,” Feldman told the newspaper in a separate interview. “They’re just going to have to have an NBA team there, which I think is to everyone’s benefit.”
Expanding what has traditionally been considered the Las Vegas Strip has also become easier when you factor in the massive underground transportation system Elon Musk's Boring Co. has been building under the city. What land is viable for building a project like a potential stadium for the Oakland A's becomes much broader when you factor in there being an easy way to get people to a new location.
Resorts World already has a plot of land that could be used to build another resort of roughly the same size of its current massive property.
