The Rise and Fall of Las Vegas’ Abandoned $4 Billion Mega-Resort

Discover the incredible story of one Las Vegas Strip property that became home to three generations of mega-resorts: the Stardust, the abandoned $4.8 billion Echelon project, and finally Resorts World Las Vegas. In this AI-powered historical reconstruction, we rebuild the site from the original Stardust construction in the 1950s through its spectacular 2007 demolition, the rise and collapse of Echelon, and the construction of the $4.3 billion Resorts World that ultimately opened in 2021. Using historical construction records, engineering documentation, architectural plans, contemporary reporting, and project records, this documentary follows the site stage by stage. See how the Stardust was built using tilt-up concrete before opening in 1958 as the largest hotel in the world, how decades of additions transformed the property, and why Boyd Gaming eventually demolished it to make room for something vastly larger. Follow construction of Echelon Place, an enormous 10.5-million-square-foot development planned with five hotels, 5,300 rooms, a 140,000-square-foot casino, convention facilities, theatres, retail space, and nearly 8,000 parking spaces. Then see what happened when the 2008 financial crisis froze construction after three steel-framed towers had already risen eight storeys above the Strip. For nearly five years, the unfinished resort sat behind screens while Boyd spent as much as $17 million per year maintaining the abandoned structures and mechanical systems. But Echelon never completely disappeared. When Genting purchased the site in 2013 and eventually began building Resorts World Las Vegas, engineers inspected and reused portions of the abandoned project. Echelon's foundations became part of the new resort. Its unfinished parking garage was completed. Most remarkably, chillers and boilers installed for Echelon in 2008 remained inside the abandoned central plant for thirteen years before finally being commissioned for Resorts World in 2021. The result was a 5