What Happened to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino?

The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino was a hotel and casino that was located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The hotel opened on June 7, 1995, and was destroyed on October 1, 2019, when the north side of the building collapsed.

The collapse killed two people and injured 29 others.

The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino was originally built as a joint venture between Peter Morton, founder of the Hard Rock Cafe, and developer Steve Wynn. The hotel was designed by Jon Jerde and featured a rock and roll theme.

The hotel included a casino, nightclub, restaurant, and swimming pool.

The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino was sold to Morgans Hotel Group in 2006 for $770 million. In February 2018, Morgans Hotel Group announced that it had agreed to sell the property to Virgin Hotels Las Vegas for $600 million.

The sale was completed on April 3, 2018.

On October 1, 2019, at 8:12 a.m., the north side of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino collapsed onto an adjacent construction site while workers were preparing the structure for demolition as part of an expansion project that had been underway since February 2019.

The collapse killed two people – one worker who was on the ground at the time of the collapse and one worker who was inside the crane that fell with the building – and injured 29 others. The Clark County Coroner’s Office later identified the two deceased workers as Anthony Magnotta and Quynh Vuong Nguyen.

An investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) determined that the collapse was caused by “the failure of horizontal tension ties between prefabricated concrete floor slabs and columns due to fireproofing material being improperly installed on those ties during construction” OSHA issued citations to six companies involved in the construction of the building for “serious” safety violations.

The Virgin Group announced in November 2019 that it was no longer interested in operating a casino at the property, and would instead focus on developing it as a non-gaming hotel. In January 2020, it was announced that Warner Gaming would take over operations of the property when it reopens.