Luxor Las Vegas is a 30-story (106.7 meter tall) casino hotel situated on the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The hotel is owned by Vici Properties and operated by MGM Resorts International and has a casino with over 2,000 slot machines and 87 table games. The casino opened in 1993 and was renovated and expanded several times. Later renovation work modernized the design of the property and raised the hotel's capacity to 4,407 rooms, including 442 suites. The hotel's rooms line the interior walls of the main tower, which has a pyramid shape, and the 22-story twin ziggurat towers. The hotel is named for the city of Luxor (ancient Thebes) in Egypt. History Construction and opening The resort was announced by Circus Circus Enterprises on November 14, 1991. Known temporarily as "Project X", the pyramid-shaped resort would cost $290 million, and would be built on the Las Vegas Strip, on land located south of the company's Excalibur Hotel and Casino. Groundbreaking took place on April 21, 1992, with the project by then known as "Luxor", after the Egyptian city of the same name. Veldon Simpson was the architect, and Perini Building Company was the general contractor. Waltek, a Cincinnati-based company, provided the metal-and-glass exterior for the pyramid. Standing 30 stories high, the pyramid was one of the largest metal-and-glass projects ever. The pyramid was topped off on July 9, 1993. The Luxor would compete against two other upcoming resorts, MGM Grand and Treasure Island. All three resorts had a family oriented focus. The resort officially opened at 4 a.m. on October 15, 1993, to a crowd of 10,000 people. When it opened, the pyramid, which cost $375 million to build, was the tallest building on the strip and contained 2,526 rooms and a casino. The resort was financed by "petty cash" earned from other Circus Circus Enterprises properties and did not include any outside financial investors. The hotel's pyramid is similar in size to the Red Pyramid and Bent Pyramid of Egypt. When the hotel opened, it was the tallest structure on the Strip, surpassed after only 11 days by Treasure Island, and featured the world's largest atrium, which has since been surpassed. Renovations A $240 million expansion occurred in 1996, and included an IMAX theater. A theater and two additional towers totaling 2,000 rooms were added in 1998 for $675 million. In July 2007,