The Monte Carlo gets a facelift to make room for MGM’s park project

Construction crews demolish the European facade and fountain of the Monte Carlo’s North Entrance on June 6, 2013.

Walk past the Monte Carlo’s northern plaza entrance, and you’ll notice a big change: its face is missing.

Surrounded by a vinyl-covered chain-link fence, construction crews have started dismantling the Monte Carlo’s European facade and famed fountain.

The work is part of the first phase of MGM Resorts International’s $100 million plan to tidy up the crowded walkway between the Monte Carlo and New York-New York. By early 2014, MGM officials say the pathway will be a tree-dotted plaza with benches, food trucks and shops.

“It’s really just a walk-by,” Monte Carlo General Manager Patrick Miller said. “It wasn’t designed to allow pedestrian traffic to really see the Monte Carlo.”

Planners have designed a new pathway to connect the Monte Carlo and New York-New York and lead visitors to a planned 20,000-seat arena slated for a plot of land behind the two resorts. Construction crews currently are in the demolition phase, Miller said.

Once demolition is finished, several new attractions, including a beer garden and Shake Shack burger restaurant, will be built. Replacing the European facade will be a Double Barrel restaurant, owned by SBE Entertainment, and a Sambalatte Coffee House.

The outdoor plaza project, announced in April, smashes the long-held Las Vegas myth that casino operators want to keep visitors inside.

Caesars Entertainment is planning a similar development with the Linq, an outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment promenade anchored by a 550-foot-tall observation wheel between the Flamingo and Quad.

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