The Las Vegas Strip has been undergoing constant changes since 1941, the year the El Rancho Las Vegas Hotel opened with 63 rooms.
Next came the Last Frontier in 1942, followed after the war by the Flamingo, the Thunderbird, the Desert Inn, the Sahara, the Sands, the Royal Nevada, the Riviera, the Dunes, the Hacienda, the Tropicana and the Stardust.
The bad news is…of those 13 casino resorts, only two still exist: the Flamingo and the Tropicana.
The good news is…every one of the other properties has been filled with something new, several of them more than once.
In 2015 you can stay and play at the Cosmopolitan, the Aria, the Encore, the Palazzo, Wynn, Planet Hollywood, Paris, the Venetian, Mandalay Bay, the Bellagio, New York New York and Monte Carlo, all of which have been built in the last twenty years.
And there are plenty of others that now qualify as middle-aged resorts, including Caesar’s Palace, the Mirage, Excalibur, Treasure Island and the MGM Grand.
Before the mid 90’s, all of the resort casino properties had one thing in common: once you were there, it was difficult to leave.
None of the parking garages were easy to find. And walking between casinos was inconvenient, too.
The aim was to get you to stay in the casino and continue gambling as long as they could possibly keep you.
That changed a little bit in the mid 90’s when some of the hotels began monorail service.
It was easy, for instance, to travel from the Treasure Island to the Mirage or the Bellagio or Monte Carlo, because they were all owned by the same company.
in 2015, several companies own multiple casinos, so there are more monorails. And there are footbridges, making it a lot easier to cross from one side of Las Vegas Boulevard to the other.
The strip has gone from a series of unrelated, individual properties to an experience that’s more like a really big mall. It’s pedestrian friendly.
Just a few blocks away from the strip, near McCarron International Airport, you’ll find the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Boise State’s opponent in this weekend’s football game.
The UNLV campus, officially located in Paradise, Nevada, is not pedestrian friendly.
UNLV is a commuter school. That means that a large percentage of its students drive to the campus, park, go to a class or two, then drive home.
It’s located on Maryland Parkway, which is a very wide street with a few strip malls and a lot more cars than people.
But if the powers that be at UNLV have their way, that’s going to change.
They realized about ten years ago that they’re jealous of Arizona State.
If you visit the ASU campus in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, you’ll find a great place called Mill Avenue, usually featuring throngs of students crowding wide pedestrian walkways, filing in and out of bars and restaurants and enjoying a vibrant, college-town atmosphere, even though Phoenix itself is a major city.
The administration in Las Vegas has a vision of something similar.
The project is called Midtown UNLV, but it’s been progressing slowly. Some minor landscaping improvements are finished, and there are plans for student apartment complexes and retail space. They just aren’t there yet.
That’s because of two main reasons. One, the Clark County Redevelopment Agency, which spearheaded the Midtown UNLV project, closed in 2009 because of budget cuts. And two, neither the city nor the county seem interested in creating tax incentives for relocating businesses, and without them, the potential businesses aren’t lining up.
It’s kind of a catch-22. Restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and shops don’t want to move there because there’s no foot traffic. And there’s no foot traffic because of a lack of restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and shops.
But the administration at UNLV is optimistic that one day, a visit to Las Vegas won’t be complete without a stop at their cool-as-can-be campus.
For now, however, even those going to a Runnin’ Rebels football game tend to stick with Sam Boyd Stadium, which is off campus in a suburb called Whitney, and the big casinos on the strip.
Technically, UNLV is located in Paradise. But atmospherically, it’s not.
