Las Vegas – 31 August 2017 –
A partnership led by New York developer Steven Witkoff bought the site of the stalled Fontainebleau resort for US$600 million, more than seven years after billionaire Carl Icahn acquired the property out of bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported.
Witkoff said he has been exploring the purchase for four months. The property at 2755 South Las Vegas Boulevard, sitting on roughly 27 acres at the north end of the Strip, was about 70 percent complete when Icahn won court approval to take it over. His company, Icahn Enterprises, acquired the property for US$148 million in February 2010.
The development “is one of the best physical assets in the country, which is one of the reasons we were attracted to it,” Witkoff said. The resort is ideally located on the Las Vegas Strip, not far from the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is in the midst of a US$1.4 billion expansion and renovation.
Icahn, in a separate statement, called the Fontainebleau one of his company’s “hidden gems.”