MGM Grand Las Vegas

The MGM Grand Las Vegas is a hotel casino located on the Las Vegas Strip, which opened in 1993 as a Hollywood themed resort. The hotel is located in Paradise, Nevada but markets itself as a Las Vegas resort and uses “Las Vegas” on its addresses.

Owned and operated by the MGM Mirage company, the 30-floor main building is 293 feet (89 m) high and features five outdoor pools, rivers, and waterfalls that cover 6.6 acres,a 380,000 square foot (35,000 m²) convention center, the MGM Grand Arena, CBS Television City, and the Grand Spa. It also houses numerous shops and night clubs, 16 restaurants, two food courts, and the largest casino in Clark County, which occupies 171,500 square feet (16,000 m²).

The hotel rooms are located in several buildings including:

* The main hotel building, with 5,044 rooms (4,293 rooms and 751 suites)
* The three The Signature at MGM Grand towers each with 576 suites
* SKYLOFTS at MGM Grand with 51 lofts
* The Mansion at MGM Grand with 29 villas

Located on the Tropicana - Las Vegas Boulevard intersection, pedestrians are not allowed to cross at street level. Instead, the MGM Grand is linked by overhead pedestrian bridges to its neighboring casinos: to the south across Tropicana Avenue, the Tropicana, and to the west across the Strip, the New York-New York.

History

In 1990 Kirk Kerkorian bought the Marina Hotel to obtain the site that would become the home of the MGM Grand. During that time, the Marina was known as the MGM-Marina Hotel. The Marina closed on November 30, 1991, and ground was broken on October 7, 1991.

On February 23, 1993, MGM celebrated a “topping off” ceremony with the placement of the last panel of emerald green glass hoisted onto one of the 30-story hotel towers. A total of 5,005 green balloons were released, each containing a gift certificate valid for one complimentary stay in one of the rooms.

When the latest MGM Grand opened on December 18, 1993, it was owned by MGM Grand Inc. At that time it had an extensive Wizard of Oz theme, including the green “Emerald City” color of the building and the decorative use of Wizard of Oz memorabilia. After entering the casino’s main entrance, you would find yourself in the Oz Casino and facing the “Emerald City”. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion were seen in front of the city. The “Emerald City” attraction featured an elaborate yellow brick road walk through. Complete with a cornfield, an apple orchard, the haunted forest as well as audio-animatronic figures of the Scarecrow, Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. It would end at the door of the city, leading inside for a performance of “The Wizard’s Secreats”. The Oz Casino also featured the Emerald City Gift Shop and the Oz Buffet (became the Grand Buffet in 1996). When the MGM Grand began its extensive refurbishment, the Oz Casino was completely renovated. The Emerald City was completely demolished in 1996. The gift shop however was moved to a new shopping section of the casino, and remained open from 1996 - 2003.

The MGM Grand was the home of the long-running production show EFX from 1995 until 2002.

Originally, the main entrance on the Strip was inside the mouth of a giant cartoon-like version of MGM’s mascot, Leo the Lion, but this entrance feature was changed to a more traditional entrance; many Chinese gamblers avoided the casino or entered through the back entrance, due to the feng shui belief that entering the mouth of the lion was “bad luck.” A large bronze statue of Leo was added above the entrance to keep with the MGM Lion theme, while not scaring away their more superstitious guests. The statue weighs 50 tons, and at 45 feet tall, on a 25-foot pedestal, is the largest bronze statue in the U.S.

When the MGM Grand opened, the intention was to create the first true destination hotel in the Las Vegas area by including the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park behind the casino. The plan was to make the Las Vegas Strip more family friendly by providing activities for children who were too young to be allowed to linger inside the casino. The theme park performed poorly, and did not reopen for the 2001 season. On December 5, 2002, MGM Mirage announced that the former theme park would be developed as a luxury condominium and hotel complex called The Signature.

A monorail was built to connect the MGM Grand to Bally’s in 1995. The coming out party for the monorail on behalf of Bally’s consisted of showgirls and guys from Jubilee helping the groups to the monorail. Characters from the Wizard of Oz greeted the groups on the MGM side. The track was later updated to became the southernmost section of the Las Vegas Monorail. The station was refurbished, the trains were replaced with Bombardier M-VI’s, and the track was extended beyond the southern station to provide for track switching for the trains as well as a starting point for a potential future southern extension to the monorail line.

In 2000, in an attempt to appeal to a more “mature” clientèle, the hotel underwent a major renovation and almost all traces of the “Oz” theme were removed. The theme is now more of the Art Deco era of classic Hollywood and the hotel started billing itself as The City of Entertainment.

On April 26, 2000, MGM opened a new satellite registration/hotel check-in center at the McCarran International Airport. This is the first of its kind opened by a hotel company at any United States airport.

In 2005 MGM opened the West Wing, adding amenities such as flat screens, DVD players, and bathroom TVs.

Film History

* The MGM Grand was featured prominently in the 1996 boxing comedy The Great White Hype.
* The MGM Grand was one of the casinos that Danny Ocean and his crew robbed in the 2001 film Oceans Eleven. A staged unification match between heavyweight champions Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko was prominently featured in the film.
* Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his family play a game of Keno in the final scenes of Vegas Vacation alongside a character played by Sid Caesar. Keno is no longer offered at the casino.

Media

A parody of the MGM Grand was featured in the BMX video game, Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX 2, Leo the Lion, was replaced with dragons.

Also, the MGM Grand was among many casinos the MIT Blackjack team went to in the book Bringing Down The House.