Ask: Why is the Trump Tower so off the Las Vegas Strip?

hi everyone Marc Anthony here the Vegas tourist calm as a professional tour guide in Las Vegas I get asked a lot of questions about Las Vegas about its history and what's going on down on the strip so I thought this would be probably a really cool way to answer some of those questions now one of the questions that I get asked on a routine basis is why is the Trump Tower built so far off the strip well to answer that question you really need to go back to 1998 now in 1998 that entire site was the new frontier also known as the old frontier and on the frontier originally built in 1941 it was one of the original casino resorts on the LA highway highway 91 something that today we called the the Las Vegas Strip or the Las Vegas Boulevard now in 1965 that's where Elvis Presley first performed in Las Vegas to an underwhelming crowd actually it wasn't much of a crowd all right now in 1967 it was owned for a brief time by the billionaire Howard Hughes also Steve went on the 5% shares it in there as well all right 1998 a Kansas businessman Phil Ruffin comes into town and he purchases it for 165 million dollars fast forward nine years 2007 he breaks off seven acres to do a deal with Donald Trump the front 36 acres he sells to an Israeli group for 1.2 billion dollars that's about 20 to 30 million dollars an acre and by today's standards that would be a record amount that was hopefully stand for many many years the idea was that Donald Trump was going to build two towers they were going to be condominium high-end timeshares and what what that meant was that you could purchase one of these units for a couple million dollars now now where were you going to get the guests to fill those rooms very simple the Israeli group had already leveled the frontier and they were going to build a five billion dollar resort called the plaza trump's idea was that he would get his guests from there the high rollers and the whales that came to the plaza because they knew of the plaza in New York and he also knew the name the Trump so they would come to the plaza they would gamble and they would play and all that and then once they were done they would want to stay someplace else the Trump Towers now you gotta member back in this period their Vegas was booming getting $600 a night for a room wasn't out of the question and that according to court records is how Trump sold to the investors you would buy one of these units for a couple million dollars Trump would get these guests from the plaza coming coming into the Trump they then rent the room out four five six seven hundred dollars a night and then he would split it with you 50/50 yeah as we all know anything with with the Trump name on it doesn't go as planned 2008-2009 the economy tanks all construction stops on the strip the Israeli group goes bankrupt on that particular project Trump is stuck with one tower and he cancels the second tower all right now at about the same time Steve Wynn was opening up the encore now for many years as you drove down the strip you saw this big empty lot and a whole bunch of trees along the boulevard rumor has it that those trees actually belonged to Steve Wynn he didn't like his guests from the encore looking at a big empty lot and his arch nemesis Trump in the back all right Trump bought out the investors after several lawsuits turned it into a strictly a hotel and again he pitted five-star hotel so it's a little bit officer but it doesn't have the casino atmosphere which is what he sold is the luxury without the casino hassle problem is if people didn't buy it if you go into TripAdvisor or hot wire or wherever you can get a room there for about one hundred sixty five hundred seventy five dollars a night definitely not a five-star price also out of the twelve hundred units he sold 300 of them to Hilton timeshare so you're going to start to see the timeshare crowd there which isn't bad but it isn't what Donald Trump had envisioned nor is what he's marketing so it's going to be a it's going to kind of interesting over the next couple years as this pans out meanwhile that big empty lot was sold to James Packard a Australian billionaire businessman and he's got an idea to build another resort there obviously it's not going to be a five-star mega resort five five billion dollar palace but it's going to be something in the meantime Donald Trump is still stuck with one tower which was supposed to be two towers and an ostrich location good luck with that one if you have any other questions about Las Vegas again go to the Vegas tourist comm hit the contact button send me your questions and I could answer it on the next video until next time this is Mark Anthony the Vegas tourist calm you

Channel: The Vegas Tourist

Views: 158,097

Rating: 3.8683321 out of 5

Keywords: Las Vegas Strip (Location), Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon (Video Game), trump, las vegas, tourist, steve wynn, Tourist Destination, Travel, the vegas tourist, Donald Trump (Organization Leader), tourism, trump tower las vegas, las vegas strip, trump tower, trump las vegas, vegas, donald trump, travel vlog, vegas vlog, trump las vegas hotel

Id: s3akWe3Y428

Length: 5min 20sec (320 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 04 2015