Las Vegas Shooting: Mandalay Bay Resort's History Of Luxury

LAS VEGAS, NV — The Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas is known as a "family-friendly" Vegas spot with luxury amenities meant to conjure up a tropical paradise. But the glamorous setting was scarred Sunday night with scenes of chaos, as 22,000 attendees at the Route 91 Harvest Festival fled a gunman's attack. Videos show how the streets around the resort filled with panicking people and emergency vehicles. The hotel's windows on the 32nd floor were blasted out by Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nevada. Paddock had been staying at the luxury hotel since Thursday, CNN reported. He killed himself in his hotel room before police SWAT teams could break down his door. It is the nation’s worst mass shooting to date, with 58 reported killed and more than 500 injured.

The 43-story Mandalay Bay hotel tower was built by Vegas operators at the turn of the most recent century. Located near Circus Circus on the far south end of the Las Vegas Strip, the hotel replaced the 1956-built Hacienda hotel. The resort has 3,300 rooms and 24 elevators, as well as a 135,000-square-foot casino, three pools and a convention center, plus a 12,000- seat Mandalay Bay Events Center. The hotel is subdivided into other hotels, with the Four Seasons Hotel occupying five stories of the main tower in floors 35-39. A tram transports visitors between the Mandalay Bay and other casinos. Visitors to the resort can rent rooms paying between $127 and $558 a night, according to TripAdvisor.com.

Also See: Toll Of Dead, Injured Increases In Las Vegas, Sheriff Joe Lombardo

The Mandalay Bay Convention Center was scheduled to host a conference beginning Monday for NetApp Insight, a data management company that manages cloud storage services for private and government clients. (For updates on the shooting and daily news from Las Vegas, sign up for the Patch morning newsletter and breaking news alerts.)

“The Hacienda had a reputation as the stomping ground for a type of small bettor sometimes derided by locals as the ‘Greyhound Bus set,’” according to an article in the 1988 LA Times.

The historic Hacienda also had a reputation for links to Midwest mafia connections. In 1977, the state Gaming Control Board tried to deny a license to the hotel after it was discovered that one owner was a middleman for mob interests.

Circus Circus imploded the Hacienda on New Year’s Day in 1996 and announced that it was building a $950 million Hawaiian-themed “Project Paradise.” In 1998, the developers renamed the project Mandalay Bay, taking the name of the city of Mandalay in Burma. Builders incorporated gold leaf in the windows, giving the hotel tower a shimmering golden appearance. A second tower, now run by the Delano Las Vegas, was opened in 2003.

In 1999, the House of Blues Las Vegas opened in the Mandalay Bay with a celebration featuring actors Jim Belushi and Dan Aykroyd riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In 2005, the Mandalay Hotel Resort Group was sold to MGM Mirage, which was later renamed MGM International.

See Also:

• Las Vegas Mass Shooting: At Least 58 Dead, 515 Injured In Worst Shooting In U.S. History, Says Sheriff
• Stephen Paddock, Las Vegas Mass Shooting Suspect: Facts To Know
• Las Vegas Shooting: Raw Videos Capture Moments As Carnage Unfolded
• Las Vegas Mass Shooting Worst In U.S. History: Timeline

Photo: Drapes billow out of broken windows at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, on the Las Vegas Strip following a deadly shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. A gunman was found dead inside a hotel room. Photo by John Locher/Associated Press