LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — As Rio Hotel & Casino’s new owner attempts to bring vibrance back to the neon resort through a $340 million revamp, he also wants to bridge the gap between them and the Las Vegas Strip, literally.
Currently, to get between the Rio Hotel and the heart of Nevada’s tourist hot spot, you need to take a 10-minute walk on a broken sidewalk along the I-15 freeway overpass.
Eric Birnbaum, CEO of Dreamscape, the company that purchased the Rio Hotel in 2019 for $516.3 million, said he wants to make that commute a direct shot to his hotel.
That direct shot, he envisions, would be a landscaped pedestrian bridge that stretches from The Rio, over I-15, to Caesars Palace. He’s pulled inspiration from the 1.45-mile-long elevated High Line in New York City, built on top of a former railway.