The Fontainebleau Will Live On, Thanks to Carl Icahn

January 20, 2010 at 6:27 PM | by juliana | 0 Comments

Finally some good news for The Fontainebleau, the half-finished resort next to Encore that has been struggling to find new financing. It turns out billionaire investor Carl Icahn is the winning bidder for the property, which developer Jeffrey Soffer drove into bankruptcy last year.

Yet, don't expect the hotel to open any time soon. The WSJ reports:

Mr. Icahn said in an interview that he hasn't determined whether or not he will slowly gear up to restart construction on the Fontainebleau, or keep it mothballed for some time. People familiar with the project say even that would be costly. They estimate that heating, cooling, security and taxes would run about $1.5 million to $2 million a month on the property Mr. Icahn said he doesn't believe he will be able to raise much financing for construction. His firm could finance the construction itself if it wanted to, he said.

On the bright side, should Icahn put the money into fixing up the place right away, the pieces could fall together rather quickly as half the guest rooms have carpeting and wallpaper and furniture is currently awaiting its time in storage. Then again, with all these new hotels that have just opened on the Strip, the Fontainebleau would be wise to bide its time until more peeps are spending bigger cheese in Vegas.

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