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This page celebrates the reinventing of the Tropicana Hotel and Casino.
Unlike her long-gone sisters, the Trop will remain the Trop. Work is
underway to remake the entire resort.
We will track her progress
and share historic photos and facts of the ol' lady
during the renovation. |
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The Latest Plans & Progress Photos
The current $100 million+-plans
are to remodel the casino,
all existing restaurants and bars, the show room, convention center, guest
rooms and the pool. A new bar in the center of the casino as well as a
new sports book and poker room
will be added. They also
plan to extend the bridge from Excalibur and MGM Grand directly into the
casino. Lastly and certainly not leastly, The Strip-front exterior
will get a fresh new look, removing the ugly makeover from 1996 (thank God).
To start things off, the Trop gets a new logo.
The new rooms (below) are quite
nice especially the fresh bathrooms. These rooms will debut in the spring of
2010
 
A rough rendering of the new exterior
PHOTOS COURTESY TROPICANA
LAS VEGAS INC.
Sadly, the worlds largest Tiffany piece will be
removed for the makeover
Photo Dpirot from webshots
We are awaiting the renderings,
meanwhile, here are some construction photos showing the remodeling of the
bridge over the pool (nice white marble) and the torn-up pool area.
Join the discussion about the Trop on the Blog
Photos 12/19/08 by Mark Adams
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Tropicana News and
Views
NEWS 12/20/09
The new owners are spending $100 million,
remaking the entire resort in a South Florida Deco Tropical motif.
NEWS
7/17/07
Renovation
plans on hold until 2008 due to a volatile debt market and
rising construction costs.
NEWS
4/4/07 The
Tropicana celebrates her 50th birthday. "Happy Birthday baby,
and many many more".
NEWS 12/26/06
Columbia Sussex, the new owners of the Tropicana, announced a $2.5-billion plan for the ageing, 34-acre property. The plan is to
keep the most of existing towers, giving them interior and exterior
renovations. They will also build four more towers; two of them
for the Trop, another for a new hotel (which will have a
different hotel brand), and the fourth a condo-hotel. In all,
the complex will boast 10,224-rooms. A 645,000-sq. ft.
convention center, 273,000 sq. ft. of retail space and new
85,460-sq. ft. casino are also part of the plans.
The Tropicana will remain open during the process, with sections
being renovated. Columbia Sussex wants to keep the Tropicana a
mid-roller, mid-priced establishment, unlike most of the new
high-end projects in Las Vegas.
NEWS 5/19/06
After a prolonged bidding war, Aztar was purchased by Columbia
Sussex, which obtained Aztar's five casinos (including the
Tropicana) for $2.75 billion, in an all-cash transaction
(including $676 million of debt assumption) valued at $54 a
share. |
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Previous Owners
(Now Cancelled)
Plans
New Model 2/6/08
The new model is quite a bit
more refined than the earlier rendering (below).
In this model, the Tiffany Tower is still there and the Paradise Tower is
removed.
Also missing is the beloved outdoor pool oasis (huh???). The towers in the
new model are more
visually pleasing and complementary to each other and the Strip corner has
been
completely redesigned. Columbia Sussex has not commented on the status of
this project.
Earlier Cancelled Plan Renderings
This (below-left) is the
first rendering of the proposed expansion of the
Tropicana. These plans are sure to change (see above), but the overall layout of a cluster of six
towers, totaling 10,244 rooms is fairly certain.
Notice the existing towers are still in the
plans and dwarfed by the new towers. Also notice the (long gone) flower sculpture
(below) is back on the corner (reinvented).
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A Brief History
of the Tropicana |
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 The Tropicana
opened April 4th, 1957 with 300 rooms.
The flower sculpture/fountain (left) on the corner of the
property remained until the late 70's.
PHOTO COURTESY UNLV SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
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The Porte Cochére (right) was cutting-edge design (for the times) and
would be happily welcomed back, in the new project.
PHOTO COURTESY UNLV SPECIAL COLLECTIONS |
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The original three-story rooms buildings are still there today, known as Garden Rooms. All
of the original buildings are still in use. These will be demolished
with the upcoming major expansion as they have long lived-out their usefulness.
PHOTO COURTESY UNLV SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
In 1960 the long running (still
running) Folies Bergere debuted.
1958: 150 rooms were added on the east
1962: 116 rooms were added on the north
1968: Sold to Trans-Texas Airways
1971: Sold to Deli Gustafson
1973: 1,150-seat Superstar Theater was added along the strip-side
1974: The event center was added on the south
photo from 1975
In 1977, the 21-story, 600-room Tiffany
Tower (now known as the island Tower) was added along with a new
Porte Cochére and gold mirrored exterior, an expanded casino, a
large shopping area, and the world's largest Tiffany leaded-glass
canopy (right) over the gaming pit. |
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1979: Sold To
Ramada Hotels
1986: The 22-Story, 805-room Paradise Tower was added along with four more
restaurants, a huge tropical pool area (below) and an indoor bridge-walkway,
spanning the pool area connecting the new tower to the
casino.
 
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1989: Aztar Corp.
took over the Ramada Gaming Group.
1991: The strip-front outer
island (right) was added to welcome pedestrians coming from
the new Excalibur and MGM Grand resorts.
 
In 1996, for some reason,
they gave the facade a new look, taking us from Dan Tanna to
Fantasy Island (da plane, da plane). I prefer the original
1957 Porte Cochére.
5/19/2006 After a prolonged
bidding war, Aztar was purchased by Columbia Sussex, which
obtained Aztar's five casinos (including the Tropicana) for
$2.75 billion. |
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