Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

March 2, 2007

Stardust To Be Imploded March 13th - 2:30am

Posted by Hunter

Boyd Gaming will implode on of the Strip's oldest hotels, the Stardust, on March 13th at 2:30am.

The building is being cleared to make way for Echelon Place, a large casino/retail/hotel development. Workers have been gutting it for the best several months - you can barely recognize the shell of the hotel tower and the distinctive neon sign is long gone, to be preserved at the Neon Museum.

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Comments

Read archived comments (17 so far)
March 2, 2007 10:14 AM Posted by John

An interesting note, on Echelon (since it ties in with the implosion). I was looking at Boyd's investor relations page and saw their Bear Sterns presentation, which had some master plan layouts of Echelon. From the looks of it, the resort tower, suite tower, and the Shangri-La Hotel tower will be in, more or less, the same tower complex. The Delano and Mondrian will be in their own separate "village" on the southern end of the property. However, the most interesting thing I saw, when looking at the overall master plan, is the inclusion of surface parking. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like surface parking has become very out of date and, to a certain extent, sort of tacky. You would think, with three very large parking garages, the reosrt wouldn't have a need for surface parking, but there it is and the kicker is that the parking is located right on the project's strip frontage. This just seems like an awful waste of space, unless Boyd plans to use this parking lot in any future expansion of the resort. However, overall the master plan looks quite interesting. I'm really expecting a Brogata-level, or greater, resort from Boyd and I hope they can deliver it.

March 2, 2007 10:46 AM Posted by BillyInLasVegas

Have you seen some of Boyd's other properties? Anyway, surface parking is nuts!

March 2, 2007 11:08 AM Posted by mike_ch

Whether or not surface parking is "nuts" depends on where it is, how much of it there is, and who it's being used for. If someone is living at Echelon, they may not want to have to always travel through a tight garage full of gamblers who are backed up because someone is waiting for that guy who parked right near the elevator to get into his car and leave the spot.

I don't mind surface parking mostly so long as it isn't built so large that it needs it's own transportation network. It works for Station, it works for Excalibur, I know Luxor has some surface parking up front near the tramway tracks, and it even works at Mandalay Bay around the convention/event center side. Not everyone prefers a 15 story monolith.

March 2, 2007 11:17 AM Posted by Tom M

Maybe the surface parking is a place holder for future development.

March 2, 2007 7:04 PM Posted by AndyMN

I'm sure it will eventually be developed as the surface parking runs from the main entrance road North to the old Westward Ho site and back to the Circus Circus parking garages.

From the looks of it, it's not that big of a parking lot. At least not nearly as big as the old Bellagio Employee lot.

March 2, 2007 7:56 PM Posted by Hunter

According to our friend 'Macau Photo', the Wynn Desert Inn garage is scheduled for implosion at 2:30am on Tuesday morning, March 6th.

March 2, 2007 8:30 PM Posted by mike_ch

Depending on how things go and the weather, I'll see if there's any rubble photos to get. Tuesday is looking like a good day weather-wise.

March 3, 2007 12:50 AM Posted by motoman

Video!
We want video! :-)

March 7, 2007 4:48 AM Posted by detroit1051

Photos of implosion of DI parking structure:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Mar-07-Wed-2007/business/13006031.html

March 7, 2007 11:12 AM Posted by mike_ch

Yeah, I saw the video on the news and with the whole thing covered in tarps there wouldn't be much to look at.

I've been having a hard time getting out of the house the past few days. I've been working very late and that means getting up way too late to go out and have fun. I'll definitely get out there for the Stardust aftermath, though.

March 8, 2007 4:44 PM Posted by Dave

Over All-Star Weekend my wife and I made the trek out to the Circus Circus garage and got some nice shots of the Stardust's remaining skeleton. My favorites are the ones where you can see the construction of Encore and Palazzo through the soon-to-be gone Stardust. Most of the "original" casino--the lowrise structure--was gone by then. I'm hoping to get some more pictures the night of the implosion (and maybe some video, too) and post them all soon after.

Is anyone else going to be there?

March 8, 2007 4:49 PM Posted by Hunter

Unfortunately I will miss it... I'll be there a few days after it comes down but mid-week I'll be working...

Dave - did you post your photos somewhere? I'd love to see them and if you need a place to post them, they are always welcome here.

March 11, 2007 9:28 PM Posted by Dave

Hunter--I haven't posted them yet. I'll probably throw a page up on DieisCast after I've got some implosion pics.

March 12, 2007 10:25 PM Posted by mike_ch

It's all set up and ready to go. They may be doing it late at night, but they are at least making a proper spectacle of it considering. The skeleton is all ablaze in the purple-blue lighting the building was normally illuminated with. Steve F from The Strip podcast says there'll be fireworks.

It's nice to see some spectacle return after these almost stealthy implosions, but why do it at 2AM!?

March 13, 2007 2:43 AM Posted by mike_ch

A nice little show, although that "curtain of fire" technique that was in Steve's PDF didn't work. The north half of the building had about 1/5th of it's pyros working and the south half wasn't working at all.

March 13, 2007 9:51 AM Posted by Vincent

The below URL goes to a video of the Stardust implosion. It is hosted on AOL's Uncut Video. Also the video is easy to embed so you can put it on your blog, etc.

March 14, 2007 4:44 AM Posted by detroit1051

Steve Friess wrote about Stardust in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/us/14stardust.html