Stratosphere Las Vegas

Stratosphere
Address	2000 Las Vegas Blvd. South Las Vegas, NV 89109
Opening date	April 30, 1996
No. of rooms	2,427
Total gaming space	80,000 sq ft (7,400 m2)
Permanent shows	American Superstars Bite
Signature attractions	The Big Shot Insanity the Ride XSCREAM SkyJump Las Vegas
Casino type	Land-Based
Owner	Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds
Previous names	Vegas World
Years renovated	2001 (2nd 1000 room tower)
Coordinates	36.147386°N 115.155389°W / 36.147386; -115.155389
Website	www.stratospherehotel.com

• CN Tower, Toronto
• Willis Tower, Chicago
• Stratosphere, Las Vegas
• Space Needle, Seattle

Stratosphere Las Vegas is a tower, hotel, and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Its tower is also the tallest observation tower, and the 5th-tallest structure, in the United States, as well as being the tallest structure in Las Vegas.

It is owned by Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, an affiliate of Goldman, Sachs & Co who purchased American Casino & Entertainment Properties which includes the Stratosphere along with three other properties. The sale closed on February 21, 2008 for US$1.3 billion. The property's signature attraction is the 1,149 ft (350.2 m) Stratosphere Tower, the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States, and the second tallest in the Western Hemisphere, surpassed only by the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. The hotel is a separate building with 24 stories, 2,427 rooms and an 80,000 sq ft (7,400 m²) casino.

The Stratosphere is the northernmost of the major Strip casinos and the only one actually in the City of Las Vegas, as the rest of the Strip south of Sahara Avenue is in the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester. Note, however, that the Nevada Gaming Control Board does not include the Stratosphere in its definition of the Strip, instead grouping it with Downtown Las Vegas casinos.

History

Looking up from the base of The Stratosphere

In the early 1990s, The Stratosphere was conceived by Bob Stupak as an addition to his Vegas World casino. At the conception of the project, one of the planned rides was to be a giant ape that would carry riders up and down one of the tower's columns. The original plans envisioned the Stratosphere exceeding the height of the CN Tower at 1,815 ft (553 m), making it the world's tallest freestanding structure at that time. However, due to possible interference with nearby McCarran International Airport, and any possible flights that come through Las Vegas, the Tower's proposed height shrank multiple times until its current height of 1,149 ft (350 m).

On August 29, 1993, the Tower caught fire while still under construction. No one was injured, but the fire forced repairs and rebuilding that led to numerous delays in the construction of the Tower.

In 1995, Grand Casinos was brought on as an equity partner for the still privately funded project under construction. While construction was still progressing, the Stratosphere Corporation was formed as a public company with shares being offered to the public.

The Stratosphere opened on April 30, 1996. Shortly after opening, the Stratosphere Corporation was forced to file bankruptcy. This caused construction on the second tower to stop, with only a few stories partially built, and it allowed Carl Icahn to gain control through one of his companies by buying a majority of the outstanding bonds.

A major addition was completed in June 2001 for $1 billion that included finishing the 1000-room second hotel tower.

In the early 2000s, the company attempted to get approval for a roller coaster that would run from several hundred feet up the tower and, in the last proposal, across Las Vegas Boulevard. Part of that last proposal included an entry monument on the ride over Las Vegas Boulevard welcoming people to the City of Las Vegas. The Las Vegas City Council did not approve the project due to objections from the neighbors over possible noise from the enclosed cars on the proposed ride.

In January 2010, American Casino & Entertainment Properties announced a new thrill ride for the top of the tower: SkyJump, a controlled descent, Bungee jumping-like ride that will allow riders to plummet 855 feet (261 m) attached to a high speed, descent wire. It opened on April 20, 2010.

Radio stations KOAS 105.7 (FM) and KVGS 107.9 (FM) have on-channel FM boosters broadcasting from an antenna at the top of the tower's structure. Licensed as KOAS-FM1 and KVGS-FM1, they are the only radio stations with transmitters at the tower. However, the signals being transmitted from this structure are relatively low-power and only cover the immediate Las Vegas area on a "fill in" or "booster" basis. Both of these stations have their main transmitter sites located elsewhere, and those transmitter sites are what give these stations more wide spread, regional coverage.

Attractions

Rides

View from the top

The top of the tower has two observation decks, a restaurant known as "Top of the World" (revolving restaurant), and four thrill rides:

• Big Shot at 1,081 ft (329 m) is the highest thrill ride in the world.
• Insanity, opened in 2005, at 900 ft (270 m) is the second highest thrill ride in the world; it dangles riders over the edge of the tower and then spins in a circular pattern at approximately forty miles per hour
• SkyJump Las Vegas, a controlled descent, Bungee jumping-like ride that will allow riders to plummet 855 ft (261 m) attached to a high speed, descent wire. SkyJump opened on April 20, 2010.
• X-Scream at 866 ft (264 m) is the third highest thrill ride in the world

Previous attractions

• The High Roller at 909 ft (277 m) was the second highest ride in the world and the highest roller coaster. It was closed on December 30, 2005 and dismantled to make space for a new attraction.

Stratosphere Tower Shops

The Tower Shops is a mall on the second level that connects the casino to the entrance to the tower.

Gaming

Some of the casino games include slot machines, video poker and European roulette. The Stratosphere has inherited some unusual variations on casino games from its Vegas World predecessor, such as "crapless craps". The 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m²) casino includes approximately 50 table games, 1,500 slot and video poker machines, a poker room, and a race and sports book.

Controversies

In two separate incidents in 2005, riders were left dangling several hundred feet above the Las Vegas Strip for nearly an hour and a half when one of the thrill rides (Insanity) shut down. The ride didn't malfunction, but was programmed to cease operation if a fault or problem is detected by the ride's control system.^{[source for second incident?]}

Since its opening in 1996, five people have jumped to their deaths from the top of the tower.

In popular culture

The Stratosphere is the model for the Lucky 38 casino, the headquarters of Mr. House, the ruler of New Vegas, in Fallout: New Vegas. Its silhouette appears at the lower left of the game's box art.

The Stratosphere is featured in the 2005 movie Domino.

Gallery

• 

  View looking upwards at The Stratosphere

• 

  The Stratosphere at night

• 

  View from front

• 

  View from ground at night

• 

  Clouds over the Stratosphere at midday

• 

  View from Stratosphere during construction

• 

  Insanity the Ride atop the Tower

• 

  The X Scream on top of the Stratosphere "drops" riders over the edge of the tower

• 

  View of the former High Roller ride

• 

  Aerial view of the Stratosphere

• 

  Picture of KOAS-FM1 and KVGS-FM1 transmitting antenna atop The Stratosphere, March 2010.

• 

  Seen from FlightGear Flight simulator.

See also

• List of towers
• List of tallest freestanding structures in the world

Further reading

• Smith, John L. (1997). No Limit: the Rise and Fall of Bob Stupak and Las Vegas' Stratosphere Tower. Las Vegas: Huntington Press. ISBN 0929712188. 

External links

• Stratosphere Las Vegas homepage
• Las Vegas Leisure Guide page on the Stratosphere, with construction details
• Stratosphere Tower at Structurae
• Satellite shot
• Stratosphere Las Vegas at The Las Vegas Review-Journal