Image: Circa Resort and Casino
Las Vegas is set to open the first-ever modern-day adults-only casino and resort which only guests over 21 will be able to enjoy.
The venue, called the Circa Resort and Casino, is located on Fremont Street in Las Vegas and will reportedly open on October 28th this year. It will be the first new resort to open in downtown Las Vegas in 40 years, and owners Derek and Greg Stevens claim it will pay homage to the history of the gambling megacity.
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the resort was announced in January 2019 and construction began a month later and has continued to present day. Excitement for the venue has been at an all-time high, but the resort didn’t hit headlines until later June 2020 when Derek Stevens announced that persons under the age of 21 will not be able to visit.
The news was announced in a tweet on the official Circa Resort and Casino’s Twitter account. It reads: “Once, Las Vegas held a certain mystique as this fabulous place where only grown-ups could play. Call us old-fashioned, but we think adults need some of that mystique back in their lives.”
Once, Las Vegas held a certain mystique as this fabulous place where only grown-ups could play. Call us old-fashioned, but we think adults need some of that mystique back in their lives. Book your room starting June 24th at 9am for #CircaLasVegas, a 21+ experience. pic.twitter.com/HBW5gweARn
— Circa Las Vegas (@CircaLasVegas) June 22, 2020
Vegas enthusiasts and those looking forward to the new resort have praised the decision to ban under-21s from the venue. Many have described it as a return to the older 50s days of Las Vegas where children weren’t allowed to visit resorts and casinos, and when many resorts held shocking atomic bomb viewing parties.
Derek Stevens has said that with the Circa Resort and Casino he’s trying to access the nostalgia so many people have of those golden days and build something that will provide guests with those experiences and feelings. He wants the building to harness the city’s varied past and all those who have contributed to it.
He told Las Vegas Weekly: “It’s a combination of all these great entrepreneurs, all these men and woman who came up with these ideas at that moment, in their eras, and created a wow moment.”
The Circa Resort isn’t the first time casino owners have attempted to create an adult-only resort as Steve Wynn attempted to bar children from the Bellagio when it first opened in the 1990s and even tried to ban strollers from the venue.
One of the reasons everyone is so excited about the resort is that it’s going to be huge and offer guests a lot. The resort itself will span 1.25 million square feet and have 44 floors, with the top labelled as floor “60”. The resort will feature a hotel with 777 rooms which include standard rooms or gigantic suites with dining tables and bars. There’s also a two-story casino which is home to over 1,000 slot machines and almost 50 classic table games.
As reported by the Daily Mail, It will also be home to a three-storey stadium-like sportsbook which, when opened, will be the biggest in Vegas. The resort’s owners hope the site will become the spot for sports wagering in Vegas. It offers a 78-million pixel high-definition screen which can be seen from the casino and on the third floor a broadcast sports-betting studio operated by Vegas Stats and Information Network.
Outside, on the fifth floor is a rooftop pool area home to six temperature-controlled pools, two spas, and private cabanas. The area, which the Circa describes as a “pool amphitheatre”, will hold up to 4,000 people and feature 125-foot-long screen which will air sports and other events. The pool area will be available all-year-round.
Back inside, Circa’s lobby will act as the new home to the iconic neon Vegas Vickie sign, and the resort’s hotel front desk will feature what’s described as a “memorable photo op”.
It will also include five major restaurants; 8 East which offers a variety of Asian-inspired cuisine, Barry’s Downtown Prime which offers traditional steakhouse cuisine and seafood in a 50s setting, Project BBQ which offers barbeque food outside, Saginaw’s Delicatessen which offers breakfast meals, and Victory which offers burgers and fried chicken and can be found overlooking the gigantic sportsbook.
Finally, the resort will be located and connected via a skybridge to the Garage Mahal located opposite the site. The nine-story parking site will act as the transportation hub for the resort and support Uber and Lyft while also featuring gorgeous art installations.
The resort was planned to open in December, but it was recently announced that the first five floors and Garage Mahal will open on October 28th. The hotel will follow soon after, opening its doors by the end of December this year.
In a statement, owner Derek Stevens said of the early opening: ”Sometimes life throws your curveballs, and 2020 has been an unpredictable year for the entire world.
However, thanks to the creativity and ingenuity from our partners at McCarthy Building Companies Inc. and Tré Builders, we can move forward on this accelerated path and have an opening unlike Las Vegas has experienced.”
He added: “We are excited to see what the future holds and to give visitors and locals something to celebrate.”
The resort focuses on offering a more modern and technologically advanced resort with callbacks to Vegas’ past rather than the jaw-dropping and grandiose architecture venues like the Venetian are so popular for. Still, it’s easy to see why the resort is so highly anticipated; it looks like it may shake the city up and offer a much-needed rejuvenation for downtown Vegas too.
The Circa Resort and Casino is open for bookings now on its official website but, as highlighted earlier, guests must be over the age of 21 to visit. Users who are unable to visit the resort when it opens can instead opt for online gambling by looking through our recommendations of the best online casino sites. Regardless, the Circa Resort and Casino looks to be one of the biggest Las Vegas attractions around, and we can’t wait to see more.
