History
Circus Circus Enterprises bought the Hacienda for $80 million in 1995. They closed it on December 1, 1996 and imploded it on New Year's Eve, 1996. The Mandalay Bay project was introduced on December 31, 1996, as Hawaiian-themed, "Project Paradise" and had a cost of $950 million. In February 1998, the project was renamed to Mandalay Bay.
During construction engineers discovered vertical movements and particularly differential movements ('dishing') between the tower core and the wings. The tower core was sinking at a rate of 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 inch (13 to 19 mm) per week and the wings were sinking at a slower rate causing differential distortion between the column bays. If these movements were not stopped structural damage would occur. Construction was halted while a solution was developed and implemented. The solution proved to be the installation of micro-piles (formerly marketed as 'Pin Piles') filled with grout 200 feet (61 m) deep below the structure each capped with a hydraulic jack to stabilize the structure at the desired vertical height to carry the weight. Since then, there have not been any reports of this problem recurring.
The resort opened on March 2, 1999 with actors Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi, and John Goodman headlining a parade of Harley-Davidson motorcycles through Mandalay Bay's front doors to celebrate the grand opening.
In June 1999, Circus Circus changed its name to Mandalay Resort Group.
The convention center was added in January 2003. When it opened, it was ranked as the fifth largest in the United States. It also offered the largest unobstructed ballroom in the country, at 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2).
On May 23, 2002, the Mandalay Resort Group announced a second 1,122-room hotel tower, with a cost of at least $200 million. Construction began on the tower in September 2002. The name of the tower, THEhotel at Mandalay Bay, was chosen in September 2003. The tower opened on December 17, 2003.
In February 2005, Mandalay Resort Group was sold to MGM Mirage, who currently own the resort. The acquisition was finalized on April 25, 2005.
In August 2012, MGM announced plans to renovate and rebrand THEhotel as the Delano Las Vegas in 2013, in partnership with Morgans Hotel Group.
Read more about this topic: Mandalay Bay
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)