MGM Grand Las Vegas
The MGM Grand Las Vegas opened in 1993 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, as a Hollywood themed resort. It has 5,044 rooms, 3,153 of which are non-smoking, making it the largest hotel in the world. It also houses a casino, numerous shops and night clubs, and an arena that is a major concert venue. It is owned and operated by the MGM Mirage company.
The building is 30 floors high, has five outdoor pools, and a 380,000 square foot convention center. The MGM Grand Arena, CBS Television City, and the Grand Spa are all part of the complex. The casino at 171,500 square feet is the largest in Las Vegas.
All the hotels on the The Tropicana - Las Vegas Boulevard intersection are linked by overhead pedestrian bridges: to the south across Tropicana Avenue, the Tropicana, and to the west across the Strip, the New York New York.
Before the current MGM Grand was built, another hotel known as the MGM Grand was located about a mile (1.5 km) north on the Las Vegas Strip. That site is now occupied by Bally's Hotel & Casino.
In 1990 Kirk Kerkorian bought the Marina Hotel to obtain the site that would become the home of the MGM Grand. During that time, the Marina was known as the MGM-Marina Hotel.
When the latest MGM Grand opened on December 18, 1993, it was owned by MGM Grand Inc. At that time it had an extensive Wizard of Oz theme, including the green "Emerald City" color of the building and the decorative use of Wizard of Oz memorabilia.
Originally, the main entrance on the Strip was inside the mouth of a giant cartoonish lion, but this entrance feature was quickly changed to a more traditional entrance as it was learned that some Asian gamblers were avoiding the casino due to the cultural view of entering the mouth of a lion as "bad luck". A large golden lion statue was added above the entrance to keep with the MGM Lion theme while not offending their Asian guests.
When the MGM Grand opened, it included the Grand Adventures theme park behind the casino. The plan was to make Las Vegas more "family friendly" by providing activities for children who were too young to gamble. The theme park performed poorly, and did not reopen for the 2001 season. On December 5, 2002, MGM Mirage announced that the former theme park would be developed as a luxury condominium and hotel complex.
In 2000, in an attempt to appeal to a more mature clientele, the hotel underwent a major renovation and almost all traces of the "Oz" theme were removed. The theme is now more of the Art Deco era of classic Hollywood and the hotel started billing itself as The City of Entertainment. A monorail was built using old trains from the Walt Disney World Resort to connect the MGM Grand to Bally's. The track was extended and became the Las Vegas Monorail.
