Vegas's New Frontier to bite the dust

LAS VEGAS — The New Frontier, which earned historical notations by becoming the Strip's first theme casino and hosting Elvis Presley's debut in the city, is set to become history itself early today when it is imploded to make way for a $5 billion megaresort.

The low-key gambling hall, which opened as the Last Frontier in 1942 with a cowboy village theme and later embraced the space age before returning to its Wild West roots, had become known for bikini bull riding, cheap hotel rooms and $5 craps before it closed its doors for good in July.

It will make way for a resort planned by IDB Group and Elad Group, the owner of The Plaza hotel in New York. The developers have said they want to create a luxury hotel with about 3,500 rooms, private residences, retail space and a casino bearing The Plaza brand, all to reach for the highest end of the market.

The Stardust hotel-casino was imploded in March to make way for Boyd Gaming Corp.'s $4.4 billion casino complex, Echelon, scheduled to open in 2010. The destruction of the New Frontier is the latest step in a dramatic face-lift for the northern Strip.

"It's another budget option on the Strip that's gone," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "The future is really high-end."

Billionaire Steve Wynn said recently that he had noticed fewer 25-cent slot players wandering into his lavish Wynn Las Vegas resort.

"That's because the Frontier and the Stardust are closed," he said.

The first of Donald Trump's gold-glass, billion-dollar-plus condominium towers is set to open behind the New Frontier site early next year. Wynn plans to open the $2.2 billion Encore in early 2009, and the $2.8 billion Fontainebleau is scheduled to open farther north later that year.

MGM Mirage Inc. is planning its own multibillion-dollar goliath with Kerzner International and Dubai World at the north end of the Strip for 2012.

The transformation has made land prices soar and elevated the northern Strip's importance.

"It just became an epicenter of Vegas," said Phil Ruffin, who sold the 34.5-acre site to Elad for $1.24 billion in May.

Ruffin bought the Frontier in 1997 for $165 million and quickly settled a nearly 6 1/2-year strike by 550 hotel workers, one of the longest job actions in U.S. history.