Marriott International is paying $50 million for its ownership stake in the resurrected Fontainebleau on the Las Vegas Strip.
The unfinished 63-story megalith, mothballed since the recession and now called the Drew Las Vegas, will be managed by Marriott and feature its Edition and JW Marriott hotel brands.
Arne Sorenson, president and CEO of the hospitality giant, assured analysts that the Drew, slated to open in 2020 with 4,000 rooms and 500,000 square feet of MICE space, “is going to be spectacular for us long-term.”
He said the investment “is likely to yield good positive returns,” but even if it “delivered nothing, it would still be an excellent deal for us because of the strength of the fee stream and the strength of the contribution this hotel will have to our system.”
The north Strip Fontainebleau was originally priced at around $2.9 billion and was 70 percent complete when construction was suspended in 2009 after its financing disappeared in the global banking crisis. The developer, Fontainebleau Resorts, owners of its famed Miami namesake, filed for bankruptcy protection shortly after.
An investment group led by New York developer Steve Witkoff and Miami-based real estate firm New Valley acquired it from Carl Icahn for $600 million in August.
Icahn bought the property out of bankruptcy for about $150 million in 2010.
