Say your goodbyes, if you haven’t already. The last remnants of the nearly 67-year-old Tropicana will be reduced to rubble this week.
The skeletons of the Paradise and Club tower expansions, built in 1979 and 1986 respectively, are among the last things standing in the way of the construction of a new Major League Baseball stadium. And on October 9 at 2:30 a.m., they’ll be imploded, joining more than a dozen historic hotels that have met the same fate.
Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) is the subcontractor tasked with making sure the implosions go off without a hitch. The family-owned company has leveled 32 other Las Vegas buildings, and CDI president Mark Loizeaux has been on site for every Strip property—from the Dunes in 1993 to the most recent, the Riviera, in 2016.
They have it down to a science, Loizeaux says. And safety is the priority.
“Typically, we take down structures in Las Vegas, if they’re on the Strip, on Tuesdays, which is the lowest ebb of activity according to Las Vegas officials. And we do it at 2:30 in the morning. Number one, not only is the ebb of activity low with tourists and pedestrians; but also, it’s for air quality. That’s when they have the lowest winds that would disperse the dust,” Loizeaux tells the Weekly.
No debris is expected to leave the site, he adds. Dust is “unavoidable,” but the contractor GGG Demolition Inc. has already removed “dust generators” including drywall and plaster. “It looks like they literally have swept the floors with a broom for all 23 stories,” he says.
Another safety precaution that must be taken is the establishment of an “exclusion zone,” which is essentially the area people are not allowed to be in when the implosions happen. Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, as well as other areas, will be closed during the implosion.
“We look at the explosives that we’re going to detonate, the type of explosives and the quantity of explosives, and we calculate what is called the noise level,” Loizeaux says.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) prescribes guidelines on the noise levels that workers and the public should be exposed to without hearing protection. The noise level determines how far out the implosion’s exclusion zone must be.
“CDI designs the exclusion zone going along public streets, rights of way, fences, things like that, that are easy for Metro police to enforce,” Loizeaux explains.
The Oakland A’s, the team that would be moving into the ballpark taking the Trop’s place, and Tropicana owner Bally’s have jointly planned a 555-drone and fireworks display to precede the implosion. There will be no public viewing areas, but the event will be televised and livestreamed on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s X account (x.com/vegas) and on ballylive.com.
That won’t stop people from booking rooms at nearby hotels. And at least one venue, the Foundation Room at the Mandalay Bay, is selling tickets for an implosion watch party, “a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime event celebration that combines nostalgia, excitement, and a touch of demolition magic.”
It’s all part of a longstanding Las Vegas tradition, says UNLV associate professor of history Michael Green.
“Las Vegas is into spectacle, and we do it well. So in many cases, we have made a spectacle out of destruction. … Starting in 1993, Las Vegas started making implosions an attraction. Steve Wynn blew up the Dunes to build Bellagio, and it was a TV special,” Green says.
“There’s an economist, Joseph Schumpeter, who talked about ‘creative destruction.’ And that fits the idea here. We are destroying something to create something new.”
In a statement, the A’s and Bally’s called the implosion a “momentous event that marks the next chapter in Las Vegas’ legacy of reinvention.” What will be created is a $1.5 billion MLB stadium, as well as a new Bally’s resort.
Vegas’ mantra could very well be “Out with the old, in with the new.” But that doesn’t mean the legacy of the Tropicana should be forgotten in its heap of rubble, Green says. When it opened in 1957, the state-of-the-art hotel was known as the “Tiffany of the Strip,” in reference to the luxury jeweler. Many stars visited and performed there, and the hotel itself was a sort of star in 1964’s Viva Las Vegas and 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever.
The Tropicana made its mark in entertainment history, having hosted Folies Bergere for nearly 50 years, and jazz artists including Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman in the legendary Blue Room, which opened in 1965.
And of course, there are countless personal memories—honeymoons, anniversaries, family vacations—connected to the building. Loizeaux acknowledges this, and sees implosion as a way to demolish a building in a dignified way, and make room for the new.
“If you conventionally demolish these structures, it would take months—months of exposure, of structures coming down. … The beauty of explosives demolition [is] the structure is structurally sound during preparations … up until the time we count down ‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1, fire’ and push the button. And the structure comes down in a matter of seconds,” he says.
“Don’t beat the structure to death with a wrecking ball. Let’s have a show. Let’s enjoy the history of the structure and move on to the next generation and see what they come up with.”
Tropicana implosion by the numbers
67 The Tropicana opened on April 4, 1957 and closed on April 2, 2024, making it 67 years old (minus two days) at the end of its life.
1,130 The number of boreholes in the Club Tower, which are filled with explosives.
2 The number of hotel towers to be imploded on October 9. The Paradise Tower is structural steel-framed, and the Club Tower is reinforced concrete-framed, calling for different implosion methods for each building.
23 The number of stories in both the Paradise and Club towers.
2,190 Pounds of explosives in both the Paradise and Club towers.
917,400 Total square feet of the Paradise and Club towers.
22 The number of seconds it is expected to take for the Paradise and Club structures to collapse after the detontation button is pressed.
22,000 The length of the detonating cord, in feet.
220 The number of cut-point locations in the Paradise Tower.
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