Boyd to lose place on the Strip for three years

Las Vegas – Once the Barbary Coast becomes part of Harrah’s Entertainment this week, Boyd Gaming will not have a presence on the Strip for at least for three years.

The company is exchanging the Barbary Coast for 24 acres adjacent to the shuttered Stardust that will be added to the planned four-point-four (B) billion dollar Echelon Place development.

During last week’s fourth-quarter earnings announcement, Boyd Gaming said it expected to break ground on Echelon by summer and open the complex by the third quarter of 2010.

Boyd closed the Stardust in November and is preparing to implode the hotel tower’s skeletal remains next month.

With the Barbary Coast leaving the fold, the nearest Boyd casino to the Strip is The Orleans, a few miles west on Tropicana Avenue.