Tilman Fertitta spent $270M for real estate on the Strip. Now it’s a parking lot

Just a few years ago, Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta was forging ahead with plans to build a luxury Las Vegas resort.

He bought a plot of real estate on the Strip for $270 million, secured approvals for a towering hotel-casino and demolished the buildings on his site, clearing the way for a flashy new project.

Today? Fertitta is the U.S. ambassador to Italy, and his property on the Strip is a parking lot.

Fertitta’s 6-acre spread at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue is home to a new surface lot that charges a minimum of $14.99, for up to three hours of parking.

As seen on a recent visit, there were no barrier arms, ticket machines or attendants on site. Drivers could come and go as they pleased and were instructed, on signage fastened to a fence, to scan a QR code to enter the length of time they wanted to park, as well as their phone number, license plate and payment method.

“Just drive out when you’re ready and we’ll automatically charge your account,” the sign declared.

Fertitta, whose vast corporate holdings include restaurant chains, hotels, Golden Nugget casinos and the NBA’s Houston Rockets, was set to become a formidable new competitor on the Las Vegas Strip, a corridor crammed with huge casino-resorts.

But he has yet to start building the project and is now an ambassador in Rome, after saying he would resign his corporate positions if he took the post.

Big plans

For now, at least, it’s unclear what will happen in the long run to his property on the Strip.

After the Las Vegas Review-Journal asked Fertitta’s namesake company 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, Fertitta Entertainment issued a brief statement.

“All options remain under consideration,” it said.

Located across from luxury mall The Shops at Crystals, Fertitta’s property was previously home to a Travelodge motel, souvenir shops, a tattoo parlor and a Tex-Mex restaurant.

He purchased the spread in June 2022 and then filed plans for a 43-story, 2,420-room hotel-casino. The project called for restaurants, VIP salons, convention space, a spa, wedding chapel, auto showroom and a roughly 2,500-seat theater, county records show.

Clark County commissioners approved his project plans in October 2022. The same day, the county Building Department issued three demolition permits to let work crews tear down buildings on the site, records show.

Time extension

In spring 2023, Fertitta announced that Las Vegas casino executive Maurice Wooden had joined Fertitta Entertainment as president of luxury hotel development.

In early 2024, however, Wooden was named president of the newly opened Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

Fertitta eventually sought a time extension for his project approvals.

He was “diligently working through the development process” but would “not be able to obtain all necessary permits” to start construction before the approvals expired, according to a letter to the county last fall from his representative Rebecca Miltenberger, an attorney with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

He faced a deadline to start construction by Oct. 19, 2024, she noted.

County officials approved the extension, giving Fertitta until Oct. 19, 2025, to start the work, records indicate.

‘Maybe he’ll sell it to us’

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.

New York developer Eli Gindi, who built the new BLVD retail complex next to Fertitta’s land on the Strip, recently told the Review-Journal that Fertitta is “one of the smartest guys in the world” and will build the resort if he wants to.

But Gindi, for one, is more than willing to buy the site.

“Maybe he’ll sell it to us, and I’ll be happy to buy it from him,” Gindi said.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-342.