Demolition is clearing the Royal Resort, an eight-story hotel that sat vacant on Convention Center Drive near the Las Vegas Strip after a 2022 fire. Crews have been dismantling the 55-year-old building in stages, continuing a saga that began when the property was damaged about four years ago.
The teardown is proceeding piece by piece rather than through a dramatic implosion, according to 8 News Now. American Wrecking, a California-based demolition contractor, is handling the work, which has advanced in sequence, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
A Building With a Long, Winding History
The property was known as the Royal Resort. The 2022 fire left the hotel vacant.
Demolition work got underway the week of September 14 and was still moving forward, per the Review-Journal's reporting. The Clark County Building Department had issued the demolition permit in June, authorizing a complete teardown of the site. A September 2 active dust-control permit list from the Clark County Division of Air Quality identifies the project as a 3.5-acre Royal Resort demolition at 99 Convention Center Drive and names American Wrecking Inc. as the company.
What the County Record Shows
The county's active dust-control list confirms the project's reported scope, location and contractor, and shows that the demolition project was active as of September 2, 2026. The cited listing does not provide specific dust-control measures or inspection findings. Once the property is cleared, the site is expected to be used for parking, according to 8 News Now.
Union Pickets, Air Quality Complaints Follow the Job
The demolition did not go forward without friction. Laborers Local 872 picketed the site, protesting the decision to hire a non-union contractor, according to 8 News Now's coverage. Local 872 representative Dennis Ayala cited concerns about dust and water management, telling the outlet, “Air quality control, we had to call the water district because we had the water running everywhere unsupervised.”
Nevada OSHA confirmed it had received two complaints regarding the worksite and was processing them, the station reported. Video of the demolition captured dust and debris near a main road, according to the Review-Journal.
A 911 call on September 15 reported what appeared to be a partial building collapse at the site, the Review-Journal reported.
What Comes Next for the Site
Once the site is fully cleared, expected to take about another month, the plan is for it to serve as parking, according to 8 News Now.
The Royal Resort had gone out of business. The site also figured in the Review-Journal's reporting.
Tearing down aging hotels to clear space for new development is a familiar pattern on and around the Strip. The Dunes Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1955, was imploded on October 27, 1993, to make way for the Bellagio, according to the Neon Museum. The Sands came down in 1996 to clear ground for The Venetian. The Desert Inn met a similar fate in phases in 2001 ahead of Wynn Las Vegas, and the Landmark was imploded on November 7, 1995, to accommodate the Las Vegas Convention Center's expansion, per the museum's history of demolished Las Vegas hotels. Those explosive teardowns differed from the Royal Resort's piece-by-piece dismantling.
More recent teardowns include Eastside Cannery, which was imploded, the Review-Journal reported separately. The pandemic was also marked by casino closures.
