The Venetian Resort

The Venetian Resort stands on the east side of the Las Vegas Strip where the Sands Hotel, home of the Rat Pack, stood until 1996. It opened on 3 May 1999 with a facade that reproduces the Campanile, the Doge's Palace and the Rialto Bridge of Venice, and a canal with singing gondoliers running through its shopping galleries under a painted sky. With The Palazzo tower added in 2007, it is the largest all-suite luxury hotel in Las Vegas and sits beside one of the biggest convention centres in the country.

History

Sheldon Adelson, founder of the Comdex computer trade show, bought the Sands in 1989 and built the Sands Expo convention centre behind it in 1990. He imploded the Sands in November 1996 and spent about 1.5 billion dollars on a hotel conceived for convention delegates who wanted a suite rather than a room. The Venetian opened in 1999 with 3,036 suites, and the Venezia Tower of 2003 brought the total past 4,000. The Palazzo, a second tower with its own entrance and more than 3,000 suites, opened in December 2007. The Phantom of the Opera played a specially built theatre at The Venetian from 2006 to 2012. In February 2022 Las Vegas Sands sold the resort to Apollo Global Management, with the real estate going to VICI Properties, and the two towers now trade under the single name The Venetian Resort. The Sphere, the spherical arena opened in September 2023, stands behind the resort and is linked to it by a bridge.

Architecture and design

The exterior is a composite of Venetian landmarks reproduced at near full scale, designed by Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo with The Stubbins Associates, later KlingStubbins, as architects of record. The lobby corridor passes under a vaulted ceiling of frescoes copied from Venetian palaces, and the Grand Canal Shoppes on the upper level follow a quarter-mile canal to a replica of St Mark's Square, with gondola rides and street performers under a sky painted on the ceiling. The Palazzo tower, by HKS, is a plainer glass building of 50 storeys, the tallest completed building in Nevada when it opened.

Rooms and suites

Every room in both towers is a suite, with a sunken living area, a dining table and a bathroom in marble; the standard suite measures about 650 square feet, large for the Strip. The two towers together hold more than 7,000 suites, with the upper floors of the Venezia Tower and The Palazzo kept for the larger suites and the Prestige level, which has its own lounge and check-in.

Dining

The resort has more than forty restaurants, bars and cafés across the two towers. Bouchon, Thomas Keller's French bistro, occupies a garden terrace of the Venezia Tower. Other dining rooms carry the names of chefs from New York, Los Angeles and Italy, and cafés line the canal.

Wellness

Canyon Ranch runs the spa and fitness club of the resort, one of the largest spas in the city, with treatment rooms, a climbing wall, an aquatic therapy pool and a medical wellness clinic. The pool decks on the roofs of the podium hold several pools and gardens for each tower.

Weddings and events

The Venetian and The Palazzo have their own meeting floors with large ballrooms, and connect directly to the Sands Expo and Convention Center, which gives the complex more than two million square feet of exhibition and meeting space, one of the largest totals in the United States. Weddings are held in the wedding chapels of the resort, on the gondolas of the Grand Canal, where a couple can marry afloat, and in the private rooms of the restaurants; receptions use the ballrooms and terraces.

Location

The resort is at 3355 South Las Vegas Boulevard, at the corner of Sands Avenue, opposite Treasure Island and the Fashion Show mall and across the street from Wynn Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Convention Center is a short walk east; Harry Reid International Airport, about 7 kilometres off, is around 15 minutes by taxi.