Newest, bluest resort on Las Vegas Strip aims to bring Miami Beach vibe to southern Nevada

LAS VEGAS — A developer’s drive to open a Las Vegas Strip resort with a vibe echoing Miami Beach’s venerable Fontainebleau reaches reality on Wednesday, with the opening of a 67-story hotel-casino tower that became famous as it sat unfinished for more than a decade.

“Bringing Fontainebleau Las Vegas to life has been an extraordinary journey,” said Jeffrey Soffer, who started the project, lost it and reacquired it to finish it. “Opening a resort of this size and scope is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

The Fontainebleau is the tallest, newest and bluest hotel in southern Nevada’s glittery resort corridor. At $3.7 billion, it’s second in cost to the $4.3 billion, 66-story Resorts World that opened in June 2021 a short walk down Las Vegas Boulevard.

The name of the 3,644-room Fontainebleau recalls Miami Beach’s icon among destination resorts, which Soffer’s family acquired in 2005. But the project in the Mojave Desert has its own lore about starts, stops and changing ownership since work began in 2007.

Soffer, the Miami-based chairman of Fontainebleau Development, lost funding during the Great Recession and walked away from the project in 2009 with the building about 70% complete.

Various new owners stepped in, including famous financier Carl Icahn and New York developer Steven Witkoff. The latter announced plans in 2018 to redesign and rename the resort The Drew, but progress stalled again during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, sitting idle, the hulking shell of a building with an incomplete street-front facade was occasionally used by area firefighters for high-rise rescue training. Last July, with work progressing toward opening, a smoky rooftop fire raised alarm but caused little damage.

Soffer and Fontainebleau Development reacquired the project in 2021 and partnered with Koch Real…