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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Casino mogul Steve Wynn is airing a proposal to reshape the former Desert Inn golf course behind the Wynn and Encore resorts on the Las Vegas Strip into a 38-acre lagoon and a 1,000-room hotel with a casino, restaurants, meeting space and nightlife.
The project, tentatively called Wynn Paradise Park, will need approval from the Wynn Resorts Ltd. board, company officials said Thursday. It could open in 2020 if work starts next year. Estimates put the projected cost at $1.5 billion or more.
Wynn, the CEO and chairman of Wynn Resorts Ltd., cast the proposal as an expansion of the Wynn-Encore development.
He said he envisions "an idyllic beach paradise surrounded by white sand beaches," at the 130-acre Wynn Golf Club.
Wynn bought the former Desert Inn hotel-casino property in 2000 and redeveloped the golf course with landscape architect Tom Fazio into an 18-hole, par-70 course for hotel guests.
Company spokesman Michael Weaver said Thursday a decision hasn't been made whether to include golf in the new development.
It is expected to feature a boardwalk-ringed lake that could host daytime water skiing, paddle boarding and parasailing, and fireworks at night from a centerpiece island.
The proposed hotel would be about half the rooms and height of the Wynn and Encore resorts, but be clad with the same copper-colored glass.
The Wynn opened in 2005 with almost 2,500 rooms in a 49-story tower. The 52-story Encore opened in 2008 with about 2,000 rooms.
The development would put about 260,000 square feet of meeting space within walking distance of the expansive Las Vegas Convention Center, Wynn officials said.
The company also plans to open a new 75,000-square-foot retail complex fronting Las Vegas Boulevard in late 2017.
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