Tilman Fertitta shelves casino project on Las Vegas Strip

Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta has shelved his envisioned casino project on the Las Vegas Strip so long as he owns his stake in Wynn Resorts, his company said.

Fertitta, now U.S. ambassador to Italy, owns 13 million shares in Wynn and views a competing high-end casino on Las Vegas Boulevard as a “conflict of interest,” said Steven Scheinthal, executive vice president and general counsel for Fertitta Entertainment.

As a result, Fertitta “has no plans to continue with the project so long as he maintains his Wynn ownership,” Scheinthal told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday, after he gave a similar statement to Houston news site Chron.com last week.

Fertitta is the largest shareholder in Wynn, and his stake is valued at more than $1.4 billion, Scheinthal said.

Wynn owns the luxury Wynn Las Vegas and Encore towers on the Strip, which are about 1½ miles north of Fertitta’s property at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue.

Fertitta purchased the site three years ago for $270 million and drew up plans for a towering hotel-casino. Today, the spread is home to a surface lot that charges a minimum of $14.99 for up to three hours of parking.

In early July, after the Review-Journal asked Fertitta Entertainment whether its owner still plans to build the resort, if he intends to sell the land or do something else with it, or if the company would start building the resort while the owner lives overseas, it issued a brief statement.

“All options remain under consideration,” the company said at the time.

Vegas moves

Fertitta, whose vast corporate holdings include restaurant chains, hotels, Golden Nugget casinos and the NBA’s Houston Rockets, was forging ahead with plans to build a luxury Las Vegas resort just a few years ago.

He bought the site on the Strip in June 2022, secured approvals that October for his resort and then demolished the buildings on the site, clearing the way for his flashy high-rise.

Plans called for a 43-story, 2,420-room hotel-casino with restaurants, VIP salons, convention space, a spa, wedding chapel, auto showroom and a roughly 2,500-seat theater, Clark County records show.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2022, Fertitta also acquired 6.9 million shares in Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts, giving him a 6.1 percent ownership stake in the casino operator.

As seen in that filing, the “date of event” was the same day Fertitta secured approvals for his project on the Strip.

He has since boosted his holdings in Wynn. He owned nearly 12.6 million shares as of early March, giving him an 11.85 percent ownership stake, according to a securities filing that showed he was Wynn’s biggest stockholder.

He later increased his holdings to 13 million shares, according to a securities filing.

Deadline extended

Fertitta’s property on the Strip spans about 6.2 acres and was previously home to a Travelodge motel, souvenir shops, a tattoo parlor and a Tex-Mex restaurant. His purchase amounted to more than $43 million per acre.

His envisioned resort, however, stayed on the drawing board, and Fertitta eventually sought a time extension for his approvals.

He faced a deadline to begin construction by Oct. 19, 2024. Last year, county officials gave him until Oct. 19, 2025, to start, records show.

Then in December, then-President-elect Donald Trump nominated Fertitta to serve as U.S. ambassador to Italy.

Tilman wrote a letter to the State Department in March outlining the steps he would take to avoid any conflict of interest if his nomination was approved. He wrote that he would resign from his corporate positions, including at Fertitta Entertainment and the entity he used to buy the property on the Strip.

The Senate confirmed his nomination in April.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.