Tropicana Hotel Bites the Dust

After 67 years of welcoming guests on the Las Vegas Strip, the historic Tropicana hotel is no more. The hotel and casino tumbled to the ground in a planned implosion (video) in the early hours of Wednesday morning, featuring fireworks and a drone show.

At around 2:30 a.m., the fireworks show began, accompanied by 555 drones that buzzed around in tandem, spelling out ‘Tropicana’ and ‘Thank You.’

The implosion of the two 22-story towers—totaling 917,400 square feet—required 22,000 lineal feet of detonating cord. Taking down the steel-framed Paradise Tower required 220 cut-point locations loaded with 490 pounds of explosives, while the concrete-framed Club Tower had 1,130 boreholes filled with 1,700 pounds of explosives.

The famous hotel is making way for the Oakland Athletics baseball franchise, whose proposed $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat ballpark could open in the footprint of the former Tropicana in time for the 2028 season.