New Vegas Resort Grand Opening Slated for January 17

The newest mega resort on the Las Vegas Strip is focusing on a grand opening on January 17, a company official said.

“We are still working with the county on our final inspections and permits,” said Ron Reese, spokesman for The Palazzo and its corporate owner, Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Sands executives had planned to open the 50-story resort next to The Venetian by the end of 2007, and the company said during an August earnings report that the date would be December 20. In recent weeks, company officials focused on plans for a “soft” opening in December to let guests begin arriving while staff worked out last-minute kinks.

“The Palazzo is nearly complete,” Reese said in a statement that noted the company would not grant interviews until the grand opening. “To help us best prepare for our grand opening in January we are continually reviewing potential dates for a soft opening” he said, adding that a date would be made public “in the immediate future.”

A spokesman for the Clark County Building Department in Nevada could not say when an occupancy permit would be issued for the $1.8 billion hotel, 100,000-square-foot casino, restaurants and retail shops.

Reese would not dismiss the possibility that the resort might open before New Year’s Eve, when the Las Vegas Strip plans to host 300,000 people for a midnight fireworks display.

The 3,066-room property is designed to appear as a separate resort, but it shares guest amenities and services with the 4,027-room Venetian, the company’s flagship Las Vegas resort. Combined, the hotel complex will be among the largest in the world, Reese said, with almost 7,100 hotel rooms and suites and 2.25 million square feet of convention space.