Tourists know Central Florida are for its theme parks. But there’s another “icon,” if you will, that just about every resident of Orlando and its surrounding areas is aware of. It’s officially called the Majesty Building, but its construction began in 2001 and it’s STILL not done. So us Central Floridians just call it the “I-4 Eyesore.”
Left: Plans for Majesty Building upon completion (via Facebook)
Center: I-4 Eyesore, not many months ago (via Facebook)
Right: 2022 April Fool’s post from a local TV station (via Facebook)
The Eyesore is located right off I-4’s Exit 92, in Altamonte Springs. At 307 feet (18 floors), it’s the tallest building in Seminole County (just north of Orange County, which is home of Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, etc.), so it’s pretty hard to miss.
It’s so iconic (and not necessarily in a good way) that not only has someone made the I-4 Eyesore into a Halloween costume and a Christmas ornament, but there’s a pair of socks and a sarcastic T-shirt with the building’s likeness, too. I mean, someone even built it in Minecraft!
The building is owned by one Claud Bowers, who is the CEO of a local religious independent TV station, SuperChannel Orlando. The reason for the 20+ year delay in finishing the building is that it’s been financed without debt; only with the help of donors and partners. So when there’s money to be spent, construction continues. When there’s not, construction stops. I mean, it didn’t even get WINDOWS until 2006!
When finished, plans for the Majesty Building are for it to have 200,000 square feet of office space, as well as restaurants, retail shops, a theater, banquet hall and studio space for SuperChannel’s station. There will also be a 1,000-car parking garage.
And when does Bowers say it will be done? Well, in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel in August, 2019, Bowers said it’ll be completed at “whatever time is best to bring it online” and (at the time) right now is “not the time.”
Meanwhile, closer to the west coast, a building in Las Vegas is considering saying, “Hold my beer.”
The Fontainbleu Las Vegas, a 67-story resort and casino, was formally announced in May, 2005. It would sit on the north Strip, on the site of the former El Rancho Hotel and Casino and the Algiers Hotel.
Construction was supposed to begin in March 2006, with a goal for it to open in 2008. However they didn’t even break ground until February, 2007.
The building was topped off in November, 2008, but due to lawsuits between Fontanbleu Resorts (they also own the Fontainbleu Miami) and their lenders, construction was slowed, then stopped entirely when the project went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2009 (at the time, the project was 70% completed, and the opening had been scheduled for October 2009).
The project was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2010, but construction was never restarted. The building was sold again in August 2017. But its story was far from over. From Wikipedia:
In February 2018, Witkoff and Marriott International announced a partnership to open the resort as The Drew Las Vegas. Upon completion, the project would include a casino as well as three hotels with 3,780 rooms. Witkoff Group founder Steve Witkoff named The Drew after his deceased 22-year-old son, Andrew Witkoff, who died of an OxyContin overdose in 2011. The Drew was intended to open in 2022. However, construction stopped in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nevada.
In February 2021, Soffer bought back the project through his company Fontainebleau Development, with Koch Real Estate Investments as a partner. Soffer named it back to Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
Fontainebleau Development and Koch Real Estate Investments have recently announced they’ve secured a $2.2 billion construction loan to complete the 67-story casino-resort, and it is now targeted to finally open in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Fontainbleu Las Vegas construction, October, 2021: APK / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0
Of course, this isn’t the first time the Fontainbleu Las Vegas has had a planned opening (gee, ya think?). If it does, awesome. Besides the nearly 3,800 hotel rooms, it will also have more than 550,000 square feet of convention space and a collection of restaurants and shops, a pool, nightlife and entertainment venues and a spa. They even have a website!
If it doesn’t open, hey, it’s it’ll still be in the running with the I-4 Eyesore. So I guess they have that going for them?
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