After reshaping Las Vegas, The Mirage to be reinvented as part of a massive Hard Rock makeover

abcnews.go.com:

The Mirage is about to vanish from the Las Vegas Strip

LAS VEGAS — The Mirage is about to vanish from the Las Vegas Strip.

Gambling ends and the doors close Wednesday at the iconic tropical island-themed hotel-casino that opened in 1989 with a fire-spewing volcano outside, and Siegfried & Roy's lions and dolphins inside.

Frenzied final days have seen standing-room crowds wagering to win $1.6 million in slot machine progressive jackpot winnings that state regulations say have to be disbursed before the lights go out and a massive transformation of the property begins.

Guest rooms are already empty. The Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show “Love” ended its 18-year run earlier this month. When gamblers are gone, only memories will remain of former casino mogul Steve Wynn's hotel that revolutionized the casino resort industry.

“Las Vegas always reinvents itself,” said Michael Green, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas history professor whose father dealt blackjack for decades at casinos, including the long-ago-imploded Stardust and Showboat. “The Mirage is no longer state-of-the-art.”

New operators Hard Rock International and Florida-based Seminole Gaming plan to add 600 rooms to an existing 3,044 in a bright new guitar-shaped hotel where the sidewalk-side volcano rumbled and gushed nightly. Renderings depict guitar string-like beams spiking into the night sky from a purplish 660-foot (201-meter) tower.

“The Mirage was a transcendent property, changing the landscape of Las Vegas," said Joe Lupo, president of The Mirage who will stay on at the new resort. «We are confident that Hard Rock Las Vegas will do the same in 2027.”

There won't be a demolition spectacle like the now-shuttered Tropicana casino-hotel several blocks down