World’s largest Ferris wheel planned for Strip

Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

A Las Vegas company is putting together plans to build "Voyager" -- which it calls the world's largest Ferris wheel -- somewhere on the south end of the Strip.

Outland Development LLC has contracted with Premier Rides of Millersville, Md., to build the $40 million, 518-foot ride. Outland executives hope to open the attraction in mid-2002.

"We want to be the eighth wonder of the world," said Gregg Giuffria, president and chief executive of Outland.

The attraction, being billed as an "observation wheel," would have 35 enclosed, air-conditioned observation booths, each capable of holding 16 people for a 24-minute ride. At 518 feet, the wheel would be taller than anything in Las Vegas except the Stratosphere tower -- and 68 feet taller than the "London Eye," currently the world's largest Ferris wheel.

Premier Rides, the designer and manufacturer of the ride, is the developer of "Speed," the 70 mph roller coaster located at the Sahara hotel-casino.

Giuffria said financing has been lined up for the project, though the company is still finalizing agreements with equity and debt investors. Also yet to be finalized is the location of the ride, but Giuffria said Outland has narrowed the search to several south Strip sites. Once both are in place, construction could begin, possibly by the middle of next year.

Outland is a venture between Giuffria, former chief executive of Las Vegas-based Full House Resorts Inc., architect Veldon Simpson and Richard Hannigan, president of Las Vegas-based design and construction firm Synthetic Systems Inc.

Simpson is the designer of a number of noted Las Vegas Strip casinos, including the MGM Grand, Luxor and Excalibur.

As president of Full House, Giuffria oversaw the company's efforts to build a $300 million Hard Rock hotel-casino in Biloxi, Miss. -- efforts which have been under way since 1998, but have yet to materialize. Full House also operates slot operations at a racetrack in Delaware, and developed an Indian casino in Oregon. Giuffria left the company in July.

At one time, Giuffria also owned the rights to "Telnaes," a slot machine patent that allowed traditional reel slot machines to produce millions of different symbol combinations -- the key to developing slots with huge jackpots such as "Megabucks." Giuffria sold the patent to Casino Data Systems and became CDS' vice president of corporate development; from this position, he helped negotiate the sale of the Telnaes patent to International Game Technology.