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“The Fontainebleau, Opening Fall 2009”

The fence almost seems like a cruel joke.

While I and my neighbors have been hoping that the Fontainebleau Las Vegas LLC would prevail in its lawsuit against Bank of America and the other lenders who promised capital, it looks extraordinarily unlikely that this will happen.

Two weeks ago, a judge denied the Fblue a summary judgement that would allow them to continue operating, and now the project joins Planet Hollywood in the “who’s going to own it” lottery.

According to Globe Street (a real estate news service), a serious buyer is currently negotiating to take over the Fblue as it winds its way through default and bankruptcy.  The same site lists Penn National and Apollo Management as potential suitors.

For those who don’t know, Apollo Management is also known as … you guessed it … Harrah’s.  Okay, not exactly, but Harrah’s is owned by Apollo and Texas Pacific Group, so it’s close enough.

The irony is that I just wrote an article yesterday decrying the potential takeover of Planet Aladdin by Harrah’s, and the very next day, word comes that their owners may also take over my personally most anticipated property in Las Vegas.

I won’t re-hash the reasons of why I would consider this a bad thing, but suffice to say that yesterday’s reasons apply today … in spades.  Each property that falls under the duopoly umbrella is logarithmically worse for the city than the property that was engulfed before it.

While I still have a raging hard-on for City Center and am looking forward to its opening, if I could only have one or the other, I would like to see the Fontainebleau (Christ I wish my spell checker would pick up that euro-trash name) come to light.

I have to admit that this is not completely motivated by altruistic concern for the Fblue brand or for the benefit of tourists.  I would probably be considered a “stakeholder” in the area from The Encore to The Arts District, and this area more than any other will have a direct impact on my own personal slice of Vegas.

From the Echelon debacle, to The Plaza, to Turnberry, to Allure, to Fblue, to Ivana Trump’s place, to the vacant lot across from the Sahara, to the failure of the Monorail to head north, to the demise of Convention activity … it’s been one spanking after another for this particular neighborhood.

Hell, we’ve become so used to disappointment that the City of Chicago has made us honorary Cubs fans.

Thank god we still have Olympic Garden and the dope dealers behind Luv-It Frozen Custard, or else we wouldn’t have a single business in the area that still turns a profit.  And I’m not 100% sure that OG is flourishing.  I don’t tip that well.

With the Fblue developments, the brightest star currently on our horizon is the “Times Square of Las Vegas” that is still supposed to happen at the corner of Sahara and LVB, but at this point … we’ll believe it when we see it.

Since I don’t know Penn National well enough to hate them yet, I kind of hope that they win the battle for the F’in Blue if it comes down to these two entities.  I’ve already seen what Apollo can do, and I think it’s safe to say that a little fresh blood wouldn’t kill us.

Of course, the question that remains to be answered is exactly what plans for the property will be altered when ownership changes hands.

I’m guessing that the iMacs in every room won’t materialize, the name could also potentially be changed, and the nightly happy endings from nearby Princess Massage probably won’t happen either, which was a personal suggestion from yours truly (I’m not kidding).

If there is any positive to this, it is that unlike Echelon, the Fblue probably will be finished, and will actually be opened.

The current Echelon site still looks like a pig’s ass, and Boyd hasn’t even seen fit to throw a tarp over the thing or erect a taller wall.  Talk about urban-blight.

I’ve always maintained that the Fblue was too far along to fail, and I think I was sort of right on this one.   I went over to the Fblue earlier today to take some updated photographs, and even though not much has changed in the past couple of months, it is still a very impressive structure.

Had it been less finished, it probably would have been wrecked or it would have been mothballed and left to rot like Echelon … but there was no way that a tower of this magnitude was going to sit stagnate for long.  It was only a matter of time before someone came in and tried to get the property on fire sale, and that time has finally come.

Perhaps residents of the North Strip/South Downtown will finally be thrown the bone they desperately need, and we’ll finally get a shiny new piece of Vegas 3.0 to call our very own.

Now if you will excuse me, I’m heading over to Luv-It.  Nothing cures the North Strip doldrums more than a heaping spoonful of, uh, custard.

With the knowledge that I may soon have a Harrah’s casino in my own backyard, I’m going to need all the custard I can get.

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