Drew Hotel Project Defaults on loans - Project halted - New buyer

don't know if this has been posted yet, but the developer for the Drew Hotel has recently defaulted on principal and interest payments on $2 billion in loans secured to finish the property.

"
Business Korea reported this week that a group of South Korean investors — which includes the Hyundai Motor Group and the country’s state-owned casino, Kwangon Land — had not received principal or interest payments on investments totalling $490 million and were getting jittery.

The Witkoff Group halted construction on the $3 billion hotel-casino resort in March as the coronavirus pandemic triggered the widespread shutdown of the gaming and hospitality industries. By mid-April, there were unconfirmed rumors, first reported by Vital Vegas, that “consultants have been told Drew project is discontinued” and that “financing never happened.”

"
The default likely came as the project experienced a setback when construction was paused in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Witkoff Group-owned building secured $2 billion in loans at the start of the year to fund further construction costs of turning an abandoned building into a casino.

More than half of the funding came from major American investment banks, and the rest came from South Korean investment firms Mirae and NH Investments & Securities."

https://www.casino.org/news/drew-las-vegas-developer-witkoff-confident-of-completing-project/

https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/24995-real-estate-developer-defaults-on-loan-for-construction-of-newest-las-vegas-strip-casino

 

Maybe Carl Icahn can buy it for pennies on the dollar Then board it up and wait for another sucker to come along in a couple of years and dump it for quadruple profits. Could happen....again..

 

So far, this is the only predictable and unsurprising thing to happen in 2020.

 

If someone takes on the project again, I have a new name for it.
Nine Lives Casino.

 

By the time anything opens in this spot, I will be taking my grandson. He's not yet two, so I'm concerned he'll be ready to go before something opens.

 

The ending of Casino [spoiler alert] when Robert Deniro explains that junk bonds built the pyramids still rings true to this day. [/is it still a spoiler if everyone on this board has seen the movie?]

 

I've never seen Casino. Or Leaving Las Vegas. Or probably a bunch of others. But if a movie/show is out more than a month, I can't reasonably expect spoilers to be kept - it's on me at that point ;-)

 

This project was never going to happen. This thing will be a monument to failed megacasinos of
2008.

 

Maybe Hard Rock would buy it if went cheap in bankruptcy. Though if I were a buyer I'd hold out for one of the CET center strip properties.
What a waste.

 

Yea.... I think there is going to be some fire sales at some point between MGM and CET.

 

You may be the only one on this board that hasn’t seen Casino. Leaving Las Vegas is a depressing movie, I can’t recommend it, but Casino is a much watch. Did you see Goodfellas? If so, then you must watch Casino.

 

Nope. Don't like violent dramas, so pretty much no mafia movies, ever.

 

Or maybe if you have Goodfellas, you don’t have to see it? lol I love them both but I definitely thought, “so that was ‘Goodfellas 2: Las Vegas’” when it ended.

 

Someone alerted Vital Vegas to some updated Drew renderings. Looks promising if they can ever get it to come to fruition:

https://vitalvegas.com/drew-las-vegas-renderings-tease-what-might-have-been/

 

Hard to say what'll ever come of that place. I think current conditions will probably yield some latch key properties further so that might be more desirable. Depends on price and who's buying. There just seems to be something about that location, so who knows.

 

Some of this stuff looks like an airport!
Blah!

 

Or something straight out of 1984 Architecture Today magazine....

 

The outside looks pretty good much like it does now, ugly.