I knew it was too good to be true.

Word is that the deal between the owner of the New Frontier and the investment group interested in buying the property have fallen through.

So what does this mean?

It means that the New Frontier is like a geriatric energizer bunny.

No matter how old and incontinent the thing gets, it keeps going and going and going and going …

I usually don’t cheer for the old properties to meet the wrecking ball, but as many of you know, the New Frontier has been on my shit list for many years.

It’s the only property I want to see go.

I wouldn’t piss on the New Frontier to keep the thing from burning down.

The Stardust goes boom, and the New Frontier gets to stay?

Life just isn’t fair.

All of this traveling from and to Vegas lately got me thinking about the alternatives.

McCarran makes sense when flying to the East Coast, but it is being saturated and the studies for the Ivanpah Airport are already underway … but what about the routine trips back and forth to Los Angeles? Vegas is and always will be a suburb of Las Angeles in my mind. We are a mere 60 miles from the official metropolitan area of L.A. (which starts at the San Berdoo County line).

That small road known as I-15 is simply not sufficient, and Amtrak suspended service between LA and LV in 1997.

So all we have left are the I-15, and flights to and from LAX and Burbank. Both solutions pretty much stink, because the time parking/waiting in the airport/flight time takes about as much time as the drive itself would.

So I started looking at the two new train systems under consideration.

One is a publicaly funded “bullet train” that will go from Las Vegas to … Anaheim. Anaheim? Why Anaheim and not Union Station (which is fed throughout the LA basin by subway lines and Metrolink trains).

But that’s not the worst of it.

There is also a privately funded train project underway. It is called the DesertXpress that will go from Las Vegas to …. get this … Victorville.

Victorville?

Holy shit. These HAVE to be the same people who designed the monorail route running beside Paradise/Koval.

By the time you make the two hour drive to Victorville, you may as well drive the remaining 2 hours to Vegas. Who is going to get out half way and hop on a train?

Anaheim? Victorville? What the fuck?

Either one of these is simply going to continue the tradition of Las Vegas Viable Rail Projects turned massive failure.

Even an idiot like me knows that nobody is going to buy a ticket to Victorville a/k/a “Barstow with shopping malls”.

In short, my research was fruitless about reasonable transit alternatives to Vegas in the near future.

Why not a simple high-speed train from Vegas to Union Station in LA? It would greatly ease-up the scores of daily LA arrivals/departures, thus vastly prolonging the life of McCarran.

It would solve several problems at once.

But it will never happen.

Because that would make perfect sense.

Ergo, it will never see the light of day.

Victorville??!!

Just … damn.

From the Don’t-Shoot-The-Messenger Department:

That’s right, after Prince wraps up his stint at the Rio next week, the 3121 Club will be no more.

What will be in it’s place?

“Coco Bongo”.

Seriously.

I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

So what is Coco Bongo?

It’s some kind of club described as “a cross between Cirque du Soleil and Studio 54″.

Swell.

First the waitresses cover their thongs, a bowling alley takes over bikini blackjack, and now “Coco Bongo” replaces Prince. What in the hell is Rio/Harrah’s thinking?

Just damn.

I guess it could be worse. They could have called it “The Club Formerly Known as 3121, Now Known As Bill’s Drinkin’ and Dancin’ Hole”.

I don’t know how the marketing department missed that one.

That is the rumor that’s been swirling around for some time.

But today, it seems that an article in “The Real Estate Intelligence Report” is lending real credibility to the rumor.

This is one I won’t be sad to see go. I’ll personally tear the damn thing down for free with nothing but a fork and white-hot rage if they give me permission.

From: http://www.theslatinreport.com/story.jsp?StoryName=0319frontier.txt

The Plaza Hotel may be coming to Las Vegas. And rooms will certainly be pricey.

Elad Properties, the Israeli-owned real estate investment group that is deep into an extensive renovation of the landmark hotel in New York, New York, is about to announce that it is purchasing the New Frontier Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Sources say the purchase price could be as sky-high as $40 million per acre or $1.5 billion for the 38.5-acre site.

If the deal is consummated, it is more than a sure bet that the Frontier which opened in 1942 and has been in continuous operation ever since will finally close and disappear, as did its nearby cousin, the Stardust, on March 12. The site will become one of several new megadevelopments, including the Stardust, Sahara and Echelon, in planning or under way on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip.

I don’t know about you guys, but the rooms at the Stardust seem to have gotten a bit … I dunno … smaller.

And housekeeping is really slacking. There is dirt all over the place. Would it kill them to clean the place up a little.

Okay, bad joke.

But I headed over to the old Stardust today, and above is what’s left.

Call me old fashioned, but I liked the previous Stardust configuration. You know, the one that had a standing building with colored lights and a cool marquee.

But I guess this one has a certain charm too. If you’re a rodent.

Just start building Echelon Place already. The property that used to be the Stardust is just plain ugly and depressing.

If I want to see shit like this, I’ll fly to Detroit.