Marriott International will add almost 4,000 rooms to the
Las Vegas Strip when the unfinished Fontainebleau site is redeveloped into a casino
resort with JW Marriott and Edition hotels.
The resort on the northern end of the Strip, named The Drew,
is scheduled to open in late 2020 with three hotels. One of them will be called The Drew.
Two Blackbirds Hospitality will oversee the resort, and Marriott
will run the three hotels. Two Blackbirds Hospitality is led by New York-based
developer Steve Witkoff and John Unwin, former CEO of the Cosmopolitan of Las
Vegas.
In addition to the hotels, The Drew will have some 500,000 square
feet of convention and meeting space. Further details, such as redevelopment
cost, room count for each hotel, and the resort's food, beverage and nightclub
outlets weren't disclosed.
Witkoff Group and New Valley LLC acquired the unfinished
site from financier Carl Icahn last summer for $600 million, four times what
Icahn paid for it in 2010.
Construction began in 2007 on the 3,889-room Fontainebleau
Las Vegas, which was to be a sister property of the iconic Fontainebleau Miami
Beach. Slated to cost about $3 billion to develop, the property was about 70%
completed when it fell into bankruptcy and construction was halted in April
2009. Icahn bought the property the following year for $148 million.
The Drew will by far be Marriott's largest presence along
the Strip. The W Las Vegas is also on the northern end of the Strip. The
Cosmopolitan is a member of Marriott's Autograph Collection.
Witkoff and New Valley
have experience building hotels under the Edition brand, which is a
collaboration between Marriott and lifestyle-hotel pioneer Ian Schrager.
Witkoff and New Valley are developing the Times Square
Edition in New York and the West Hollywood Edition in Southern California, both
of which are slated to open this year. Witkoff and New Valley also built
Schrager's Public hotel in New York, which opened last year.