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

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.

via The Monte Carlo gets a facelift to make room for MGM’s park project – VEGAS INC.