Boyd Gaming is planning to demolish the Eastside Cannery Hotel and Casino, which closed in 2020 during the pandemic and never reopened. 

The decision is a change from three years ago, when Boyd officials said they were waiting for the east Las Vegas market to improve before reopening the 300-room hotel-casino on the Boulder Strip.

“It has been more than five years since we closed Eastside Cannery, and there is not sufficient market demand to reopen the facility,” Boyd Gaming spokesman David Strow said in a statement Friday. “Given this, we are finalizing plans to demolish the building.”

Strow said the company was in discussions to sell the site for residential use, and fencing was going up around the property Friday morning.

Boyd officials had said much of Eastside Cannery’s business migrated to the company-owned Sam’s Town Casino. The two properties are a half-mile apart on Boulder Highway.

Boyd Gaming acquired Eastside Cannery along with Cannery North Las Vegas for $230 million in 2016. The hotel-casino, which opened in 2008, had 65,000 square feet of gaming space, a special events ballroom, a private club on the 16th floor, one restaurant and two bars.

Boyd operates 10 casinos throughout Southern Nevada.

Eastside Cannery was the last Las Vegas casino that hadn’t reopened following the pandemic, when the state ordered casinos to close for 78 days in 2020. Three properties owned by Red Rock Resorts — Fiesta Henderson, Fiesta Rancho and Texas Station — were sold and later demolished. 

One casino in Laughlin, the Colorado Belle which is owned by Golden Entertainment, has remained closed since the pandemic.