- What's new in Las Vegas for 2021.
One of the best things about visiting Las Vegas
is there's always new attractions opening, new casinos,
new hotels, new restaurants to eat at, new shows to see
and so in this video, I'm gonna tell you about
all those new things that have opened in 2020
and all the new things that are planned to open in 2021.
Now this is the year of the pandemic
and so something a little different I'm gonna do this year,
is I'm also gonna share with you some
of these significant things that have closed,
because lots of things have closed this year in Las Vegas.
It might be one of your favorite attractions or restaurants
that's no longer there anymore.
By the way, I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun,
informative and entertaining.
This video, it's part of my series on Las Vegas.
So if you wanna see more videos on Las Vegas
like the best luxury hotels to stay at, or the cheapest eats
on the Las Vegas Strip, well you'll find links to those
in the description or at the end of this video.
So without further ado, let's get right into it.
And we're gonna start with the major things
that have opened in 2020.
The first and the biggest is the Allegiant Stadium,
this is home to the Raiders and was completed
at a cost of $2 billion.
It'll seat 65,000 fans.
It's an indoor stadium, but one of the things
that's really neat about this stadium
is it's real grass inside.
How do they grow the real grass?
Well, they've actually got this conveyor belt
that essentially moves the grass outside so it can get sun
and then when it's game time they move the grass back
into the stadium.
Now, unfortunately, during pandemic time
there have been no in-person games or in-person events.
The first in-person event that's scheduled there
is a Garth Brooks Concert that's scheduled
for February of 2021.
I'm not sure I would keep your hopes up about that one
but the Allegiant Stadium website does say that they plan
to host tours of the stadium soon.
The second biggest thing to open in 2020
is the Circa Resort & Casino.
This casino and hotel opened in Downtown Las Vegas.
It has a lucky number, 777 hotel rooms
and it is the first new hotel to open since 1980
in Downtown Las Vegas.
It's also the tallest tower North of the Las Vegas Strip.
Circa has a lot of neat things about the hotel
but I think one of the coolest is their stadium swim.
It's their rooftop swimming pool that also has big screens
so you can watch sports games.
I also think if you're staying in the hotel one neat thing
is their basic rooms come with refrigerators
in the rooms, pretty nice.
Now, speaking of Downtown,
the Downtown Gateway Arch is now complete.
This is located right next to the Stratosphere,
I'm sorry, the Strat and it's this arch
that lights up at night,
it was completed at a cost of $6.5 million.
It's trying to be the new selfie spot.
You know, the other side of the Strip has the welcome
to Las Vegas sign that everybody takes a picture of,
well, Downtown Las Vegas is trying to get you to come
and take a picture of this.
I think this sign almost gives people a reason to come down
to this part of the Strip where the Strat is.
The next new thing in 2020 is at the Circus Circus Hotel,
no it wasn't torn down, they've added a new ride
in the Adventuredome, it's called NebulaZ.
It's a thrill ride.
It has eight gondolas that hold four riders each
and rotate guests 14 times a minute
from 32 feet up in the air.
This video, not from the Adventuredome
but from the company that makes the ride
at their original Coney Island location.
Heading more towards the center of the Strip
we have a new opening of a Target store.
The Target store has opened in the Showcase Mall,
it replaces the former
Smith and Wollensky steakhouse building.
This is one of Target's smaller format stores,
it's about 20,000 square feet,
but it's a great place to stuck up on snacks and drinks
and you'll find it right next to the giant Coke bottle
and the M&M store.
Caesars Entertainment has opened a new convention facility
called the Caesars Forum.
It's located behind the LINQ Hotel,
behind the big Ferris wheel.
This venue can hold up to 10,000 attendees for events
and its claim to fame as part of the Forum is the ballrooms,
there's two of them.
They are 110,000 square feet each making them
the world's largest pillar-less ballrooms in the world.
Now you might be thinking,
isn't it kind of weird to open a conference facility
during the pandemic, Caesars has been building
and planning this thing for a long time
and so they'll be well-poised when conventions
and events do return to Las Vegas.
And the final new thing in 2020 that I wanna mention
is the El Cortez Hotel in downtown
has finally replaced their carpet,
after how long, after 13 years.
People will always wonder,
how often do these casinos replace their carpet,
well now you know, at the El Cortez it's every 13 years.
And if you are one of the lucky ones
in the hotels gift shop starting January 1st this year,
they were actually selling pieces of that carpet $19 each,
no, not the one that was on the floor,
some old stock that they had, so it was new.
So now before we get to what's coming in 2021
I wanna talk about what's closed this year in 2020
due to the pandemic.
The first significant closure to talk about, buffets.
Lots of buffets are currently closed, but I wanna share
with you the ones that have permanently closed.
Circus Circus has permanently closed at least a portion
of their buffet.
At the Circus Circus Hotel they are reallocating
a portion of the buffet space to a food court.
The food court is being built out at the Circus Circus
by the same company that operates the one at Excalibur.
And Circus Circus says they do plan to open
some of the buffet again assuming that they can
and demand warrants.
Now, the other buffet that has closed permanently,
at the Treasure Island, the Treasure Island has closed
it's buffet permanently, they've replaced that space
with a sports book instead of a buffet.
The plagued project known as The Drew
has been suspended indefinitely.
This hotel is located right about across the street
from the Circus Circus.
It was supposed to house the Strip's first JW Marriott.
This thing has been plagued from the beginning,
delays and bankruptcies, all construction is currently
at a dead stop on The Drew.
2020 has seen a significant amount of restaurant closures
across Las Vegas and I'm gonna highlight
just a few of the significant ones that have closed
on the Las Vegas Strip.
First up Pok Pok Wing.
This was at the cosmopolitan in the block 16 food court.
They closed this year.
Pok Pok Wing will be replaced by David Chang's Bāng Bar.
David Chang of Momofuku fame, specializing
in rotisserie meats wrapped in Korean bang bread.
A restaurant that I really enjoyed
for their Singaporean style chicken rice, Flock and Fowl
in Downtown Las Vegas also has closed.
Heading over to the Palazzo Hotel
there's a couple significant closures here to mention.
The first one is Emeril Lagasse's, Lagasse's Stadium.
This was Emeril sports bar, that one no more.
The second one at the Palazzo to close
was Morels Steakhouse.
This one had a Strip view morels, also no more.
Over at Caesar's Palace,
Bobby Flay's celebrity chef restaurant Mesa Grill has closed
after 15 years.
Now, if you still like Bobby Flay food, good news,
it's being replaced by another Bobby Flay restaurant
called Amalfi specializing in Italian seafood.
Bobby Flay's other seafood restaurant at the Palms Hotel
is currently closed indefinitely
because the Palms Hotel has still not reopened.
A couple of closers to mention at the Mirage.
First, the Mirage has lost its nightclub called 1OAK.
1OAK has shut its doors permanently.
And second at the Mirage it's lost Carnegie Deli,
famous for its mile high pastrami sandwiches
and matzo ball soup, you'll have to look other places.
If you are looking for really good pastrami sandwiches,
head over to the New York in New York
and get the pastrami sandwiches
and matzo ball soup over there.
And finally the hotel with the most restaurant closures
on the Strip, the Aria, they've closed the Aria Cafe, Sage,
the seafood restaurant Herringbone and a pizza restaurant
that I really enjoyed called Five50,
all four of those no more.
The one exciting thing that did open an Aria in 2020
that replaced one of those is Din Tai Fung,
specializing in their soup dumpling.
So if you like Taiwanese soup dumplings,
checkout Din Tai Fung,
my favorite Chinese restaurant anywhere.
Okay, now that we've got the depressing closures
out of the way, let's talk about what's coming in 2021.
The thing that I'm most excited for opening this year
in 2021 is Resorts World.
Resorts World has been in development for a long time.
It's a $4.3 billion resort
that has an opening date of Summer 2021,
coming with 3,500 hotel rooms.
Particularly exciting because these hotel rooms
are gonna be affiliated
to the Hilton Honors Rewards Program.
It's gonna be three Hilton affiliated hotels,
a Hilton hotel, and LXR hotel and a Conrad hotel.
There's gonna be tons of stuff in this integrated resort,
nightclubs, swimming pools, restaurants, check it out
in the Summer.
The next hotel that I'm really excited about opening
in Las Vegas is the Virgin Hotel.
This replaces the former Hard Rock Hotel,
which I guess I could have mentioned it closed last year
to make way for the Virgin Hotel,
but we're talking about new hotels now.
What's really interesting about the Virgin Hotel
is it will be the first tribally operated casino,
operated by the Mohican native American group.
The Virgin Hotel will have about 1500 hotel rooms.
There's no official opening date yet,
but if you go to their website,
rooms are bookable starting April 7th.
Now speaking of conventions, the Las Vegas Convention Center
is wrapping up its expansion this year,
they're adding a new West Hall
that will add 1.4 million square feet
to the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Where did they find all this room to build this new hall,
well, it's the land that was formerly occupied
by the Riviera Hotel.
When it's all said and done the Las Vegas Convention Center
will now be the largest convention center in North America.
Another new thing at the convention center
the boring company, Elon Musk's tunnel digging company,
is building a new transportation system
underneath the convention center.
It's essentially an underground version of Uber,
operated by Teslas.
That's supposed to open this year in 2021
assuming they actually have a convention
at the convention center.
Something that may begin construction this year
is the Las Vegas Loop.
The boring company is proposing building this tunnel system
throughout Las Vegas, 15 miles of tunnels
with these underground automated Teslas,
should be pretty interesting if it comes to fruition.
One of my favorite attractions at the Las Vegas
is getting a new location, the Pinball Hall of Fame,
which is currently on Tropicana,
is building out a new location on the Las Vegas Strip
across from the Mandalay Bay.
This new location will be 28,000 square feet,
three times bigger than the current location.
Currently they have about 250 pinball machines
but they're expecting to have 700.
The new location, just like the old one,
will have no admission fees
and all of the games operate on quarters.
Whenever live shows return,
the Magic Mike Show has a new home,
its new home will be at the Sahara Hotel.
So for all of you ladies that are heading to Vegas
for a bachelorette party, well you can get your party on
over at Magic Mike at the Sahara.
Speaking of the Sahara, they're building out
a new restaurant row featuring
some new Strip front eateries.
One of the notable ones
will be Chickie's and Pete's sports bar and crabhouse.
They're also opening their own Chinese concept
called Noodle Den.
Another new restaurant coming to the Las Vegas Strip
is Olive Garden.
Olive Garden is planning to open a flagship location
above that new Target in the Showcase Mall.
This Olive Garden is gonna be about 12,000 square feet
with a maximum occupancy of about 400 people inside.
It should be pretty nice Olive Garden
because they're spending about $4 million on the renovation.
One of the most unusual but maybe most interesting things
to open in 2021 will be AREA15.
This is an art entertainment district
that's located across the Interstate 15
from about where the Trump Tower is.
AREA15's website calls it a mashup of a funky bizarre,
artismal food hall, music venue, sculpture garden
and immersive experience.
They say it's the evolution of the mall
for the 21st century.
It is sure to be interesting because the director
of art content for AREA15 is one of the founders
of the Blue Man Group.
Now, if you're really itching to experience the Raiders,
when you can't do it at Allegiant Stadium right now,
well the Raiders are planning to open a restaurant,
the Raiders Restaurant, over at the M Hotel in Henderson.
That's all kind of the Las Vegas metropolitan area
but this hotel is located on the Interstate 15.
If you're driving in from California
it's the first big hotel you see on the right hand side.
The Raiders Bar & Grill will have over 30 televisions,
the Raiders memorabilia, bars, outdoor dining
it's sure to be a great place to watch the game on game day.
Now there's a couple more interesting things brewing
in 2021, but I'm gonna call this the future category
of things that are being worked on this year
but will likely come to fruition in later years.
The first one is the Rio Hotel.
New owners have purchased the Rio Hotel and so it's expected
that they're gonna do a whole rehab of the Rio Hotel
that might start this year, it might start next year,
but that's the current rumor
is to expect a full rehabilitation of the Rio Hotel.
Currently under construction and slated to open in 2023
is the MSG Sphere.
This is a new concert venue run
by the Madison Square Garden group is gonna be a big sphere.
And instead of having speakers to beam audio to you
they're gonna use things to beam audio directly
to your seat.
How's this all going to work, it's hard to say,
but if this actually does open it sure to be pretty cool.
If you're coming to Vegas in 2021
you might see the structure of the MSG Sphere starting
to materialize right behind the Venetian Hotel.
And speaking of the Venetian Hotel, rumor is it's for sale,
asking price $6 billion.
Why would the owner wanna sell the Venetian,
well, because the Las Vegas Sands Corporation believes
that there're gonna be more money made in Macau
and in Singapore than in Las Vegas.
So if you've got an extra $6 billion hanging around
in your wallet, you could be the new owner
of the Venetian and the Palazzo.
Well, if you enjoyed this video
and you're planning a trip to Las Vegas
you might enjoy checking out some of my other videos,
like my video about the cheapest eats on the Las Vegas Strip
or perhaps the best luxury hotels.
As usual, I won't say goodbye,
because I'll see you in one of these videos.