A new resort and casino complex could spring up in the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip after two Israeli hoteliers bought before this month the 1960s-era Motel 8 and triumphed plans to bulldoze the website in order to generate room for a new development, the vegas Review-Journal reports.
According to land records, Israeli businessmen Asher Gabay and Benny Zerah completed the purchase of the motel on July 13. They paid $7.4 million to the property which is located on the southern border of the Strip, right across the road from where the gold facade of Mandalay Bay is shining in the hot Las Vegas sun and is dwarfing the much smaller construction of Motel 8.
The Review-Journal notes Motel 8 includes a peculiar backstory. Court records showed that the property’s late owner, with no knowledge of his estranged spouse, had transferred its ownership to a trust formed together with his mistress. The motel’s owner died in 2009. A Clark County court upheld his wife’s half-ownership of their house four decades after.
Mr. Gabay and Mr. Zerah are proven to function as co-founders of Astral Hotels. Talking to the Review-Journal Monday, Mr. Gabay said that Motel 8 was located in a very interesting place on the Strip, pointing to the new Raiders arena among the properties making the area interesting.
The businessman further pointed out that he and Mr. Zerah could have seen something others do not see from the motel that is part of a portion of the Strip which has not seen much development over the previous decades.
Can Motel 8 Be Transformed Into a Casino Resort?
Mr. Gabay advised the Review-Journal which their plans for the now shuttered Motel 8 along with its nearby Mr. Deli convenience store involve razing those and creating room for a resort and casino complex. The businessman declined any additional comments on what the potential of the one-acre site would be, but suggested that additional details might be shown in the coming months.
A spokesperson for Clark County has advised the Review-Journal that no plans for the website have been registered with county officials and regulators yet.
News about the purchase of Motel 8 and its prospective redevelopment into a casino hotel arrive at the right time of booming development activity both across the Strip and in Downtown Vegas. Ten years after the Great Recession hit the city and its key industries, multiple programmers, including overseas ones, eventually see clear indications of recovery that encourage them to input Las Vegas or enlarge or renovate their current business in the city.
Most recently, programmer Derek Stevens was given the green light from the Las Vegas City Council to kick off building on a casino hotel which is to be located on the Fremont Street in downtown. The land will be located at the websites of the former Las Vegas Club, Mermaids, and the Glitter Gulch strip club, that were demolished several months ago to make room for the new development.
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