The opening of the $4.3 billion, 3,500-key Resorts World Las Vegas on June 24, the culmination of more than a decade of work, brings new attention to the long-troubled north part of the Strip.

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That portion of one of the world's most famous streets has seen more than its share of failed dreams. The fabled Circus Circus hums along, and the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center opened this year, but the property known alternately as the Drew or Fontainebleau remains a hulking blue shell, its construction halted several times, its ownership shifting hands.

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Australian billionaire James Packer acquired the vacant former New Frontier site on 2014, planned to build the 1,100-room Alon Las Vegas but reportedly had trouble raising funds and sold the land to Wynn Resorts in late 2017. A Wynn Resorts spokesman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal recently that projects such as Resorts World "benefit all current and future resorts" on the north Strip and that his company has "not announced a development timeline" for its land.

Former NBA player and University of Nevada, Las Vegas star Jackie Robinson announced plans in late 2013 to build an arena and a luxury hotel on the former Wet 'n' Wild waterpark site. But even though government approvals were renewed as recently as April, the 22-acre site remains vacant. The iconic Sahara Hotel closed in 2011, reopened as the SLS Las Vegas in 2014 and then was sold and renamed the Sahara Las Vegas.

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Persistence and the deep pockets of the Genting Group of Malaysia finally brought Resorts World to fruition, said Stephen Miller, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV. Genting bought the abandoned Echelon resort site from Boyd Gaming in March 2013 and completed long-delayed construction in the midst of the pandemic.