$1B M Vegas Resort to Cater to Thriving Mid-Size Event Market

Developers of the planned $1 billion M Resort, Spa & Casino in Las Vegas recently revealed new project details designed to address the city’s dearth of conference facilities that accommodate small and mid-sized meetings and events. To meet the market’s demand, 60,000 square feet of meeting space has been incorporated into the plan. With a location on 90 acres, the M Resort will offer 390 guestrooms, 92,000 square feet of gaming space, a 100,000-square-foot entertainment piazza, restaurants and a 23,000-square-foot spa. The newly announced meeting space segment–a fifty percent increase over the previously planned 40,000 square-foot allotment–will provide smaller businesses with the same full-service, upscale amenities that are available to behemoth conventions at a plethora of locations throughout the city.Indeed, M Resort may have hit upon something big–or small, if viewed in the literal sense–as the mega-developments with mega-meeting space just keep coming. Early this month news emerged that Wynn Resorts Ltd. chairman & CEO Steve Wynn is hoping to build a new convention hotel that would include up to 1.8 million square feet of exhibition space. Additionally, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. reported in its first quarter 2008 earnings statement that its interconnected Palazzo, renovated Venetian and Sands Expo & Convention Center properties now serve as the largest integrated resort and convention destination in the world, with 7,100 rooms and a whopping 2.3 million square feet of meeting, convention and exhibition space. M Resort chairman and CEO Anthony A. Marnell, III expects to complete development of the M resort in spring 2009.