LAS VEGAS (CelebrityAccess) – Hard Rock International, bought by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 2006, has big plans for the live entertainment sector, including a place back on the Las Vegas Strip.
With an eye to the future, the company plans to add a hotel/casino in Bristol, Virginia, and Rockford, Illinois, in two years. Future openings include Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Tejon (Bakersfield, CA) with plans for a new resort in Barcelona, Athens, and Mexico City, according to Joe Emanuele, Hard Rock’s Senior Vice President, Design and Design Construction). The Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana in Gary opened a year ago and, according to Emanuele, is “the No. 1 casino in the state.”
VenuesNow reports Hard Rock paid more than $1 billion to buy the Steve Wynn developed property on the strip where the Mirage currently sits – to convert it into a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The Mirage is set to be completed, changed, and rebranded with a guitar-shaped tower modeled after the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
“It will change the face of the Strip,” Emanuele said of the Vegas development. “What we’re going to do there is so imaginative, so creative. It’s a beautiful design, a guitar-shaped tower like you’ve never seen before.”
The original Hard Rock near the Strip opened in 1995, closed in 2020 after being sold, and was rebranded last year as Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.
