Echelon (originally Echelon Place) was a proposed $4.8 billion mixed-use project that was to be built on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. Boyd Gaming announced the project in January 2006, as a replacement for its Stardust Resort and Casino. Echelon Place, to be built on , was to include a casino, 4 hotels providing 5,300 rooms, 25 restaurants and bars, and the Las Vegas ExpoCenter. Echelon Place was also to include the $2.9 billion Echelon Resort, with 3,300 hotel rooms. Other hotels were also to include a Shangri-La Hotel and two hotels by Morgans Hotel Group: a Delano Hotel and a Mondrian Hotel. The project was also to include a $500 million shopping promenade, to be co-developed and managed by General Growth Properties. The Stardust was closed in November 2006, and subsequently demolished. Groundbreaking for the Echelon project occurred on June 19, 2007, with an opening scheduled for the third quarter of 2010. However, construction was suspended on August 1, 2008, as Morgans Hotel Group and General Growth Properties could not obtain financing for their portions of the project, due to the effects of the Great Recession. As of 2012, Boyd Gaming still intended to finish construction of the project, and received a six-year extension from the county. However, in March 2013, Boyd Gaming sold the site to the Genting Group, which began developing it as a 3,500-room hotel and casino named Resorts World Las Vegas. Some of the unfinished Echelon buildings were incorporated into the Resorts World project, which opened on June 24, 2021. History In the late 1990s, Boyd Gaming postponed plans to redevelop the site of its Stardust Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, to instead proceed with its Borgata hotel-casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After the Borgata opened in 2003, Boyd Gaming stated that it would wait until the 2005 opening of nearby competitor Wynn Las Vegas before starting a redevelopment plan for the Stardust site. While no specific plans had been considered for the site up to that time, future redevelopment possibilities would include demolishing the Stardust or building an adjacent resort on property located behind the Stardust. In November 2004, Boyd Gaming purchased a 13-acre parcel of land for $43 million, as part of its eventual redevelopment plans for the Stardust site. The 13-acre property was occupied by a 639-room Budget Suites hotel, and was contiguous to the Stardust.