Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is unloading the still-unfinished Fontainebleau resort on the Las Vegas Strip, selling it for $600 million to a group lead by New York developer Steve Witkoff.
The acquirers include Vector Group Chairman Bennett LeBow and Chief Executive Howard Lorber, who also heads Douglas Elliman and New Valley, the investment firm owned by the Vector Group.
The Sin City asset was enticing because it could be had at a significant discount to both the replacement cost and the implied public market valuations of comparable Las Vegas Strip resorts, the buyers said in a statement.
The property “is one of the best physical assets in the country,” Witkoff told The Post. “It’s a growing market with no new construction.”
The buyers will finish it out as a hotel, with no condos planned, he added.
The name is also likely being changed as the team is referring to the resort by its address at 2755 Las Vegas Blvd. South.
Icahn scooped up the $3 billion project for just $150 million in 2010 after its original Miami-based developer ran out of steam — and money — in 2009 and filed for bankruptcy.
The 68-story condo/hotel with 3,889 rooms sits on a 27-acre parcel at the north end of the Strip near Steve Wynn’s resort, but it has been an unfinished eyesore for a decade.
Icahn called the Fontainebleau, which he has been trying to sell for more than two years, one of his company’s “hidden gems.” The sale “ has resulted in a gain of approximately $457 million for our investors,” Icahn said.
While they closed on this deal Tuesday, Witkoff and New Valley are also selling another large New York City property.
They, along with minority partner Harry Macklowe, own the Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South, which was to be torn down and turned into skyscraping luxury condominiums.
The hotel is on the market through Eastdil Secured.
The group agreed to sell it as part of a government investigation into their co-investor Jho Low, who is accused of siphoning money from a Malaysian investment fund.
