A shuttered hotel near the Las Vegas Strip was turned into a mountain of rubble this week.
Work crews recently started tearing down the Royal Resort on Convention Center Drive. Much of the 8-story building was still standing as of Monday, and then, the hotel was fully demolished by Wednesday, with huge mounds of concrete, twisted metal and other debris on the site just east of Las Vegas Boulevard.
Several people with Laborers Local 872 picketed the site Wednesday to protest the non-union contract for the demolition. They also provided video to a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter that shows the partially demolished hotel rapidly crashing down around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, as seen on the timestamp, leaving a small portion of the building still standing.
The video shows a demolition crew working on the building as it came toppling down, with one worker apparently nearby, midair, in a boom lift.
The video, which was shot from a parking lot across the street from the job site, also shows a big plume of dust billowing over the fence onto Convention Center Drive as some cars drive by.
Carlos Galaviz, chief financial officer with American Wrecking Inc., the contractor hired to demolish the hotel, said the building did not collapse.
“We had everything under control,” he said.
Galaviz, whose family owns the non-union demolition firm based near Los Angeles, said the tear-down was all done in sequence.
“Nothing happened that we weren’t anticipating,” he said.
The Clark County Fire Department was called to the scene Tuesday after a 911 caller “reported what appeared to be a partial building collapse,” but it was “quickly determined” that the building was undergoing permitted demolition activity, county spokeswoman Stephanie Wheatley said in an email.
No one was found to be injured or trapped, so the Fire Department crews were cleared from the scene, she added.
Wheatley also said that no issue was reported with the permitted demolition.
Records show the Clark County Building Department issued a demolition permit in June, valued at $1.3 million, for the complete demolition of the hotel, at 99 Convention Center Drive.
The hotel opened in 1970 as the Royal Las Vegas. At the time, the operator said in the Review-Journal that the property “brings together both the romance and old warm charm of England with every modern jet-set convenience expected in a 20th century lodging facility.”
Southern California investors bought the site in 2006 for about $27.8 million, property records show. The ownership group could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Clark County records show the Royal Resort went out of business by summer 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the economy.
The main entrance was blocked off with chain-link fencing by 2022.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
