Boyd Gaming made its long anticipated announcement about creating its own luxury megaresort, reports the Gaming Wire. The company will close the Stardust and demolish it in 2007 to build a $4 billion complex of hotels to be named “Echelon Place.”

The resort will include 5,300 hotel rooms, 1 million square feet of meeting and convention space, 350,000 square feet of retail stores and a 140,000-square-foot casino. It is scheduled to open in early 2010.

Chairman Bill Boyd says planning for the new resort began in 2005 and represents a change in direction from the last seven years when the company concentrated on geographical diversification. Borgata in Atlantic City seems to have been a dress rehearsal for the new resort with many of the key personnel moving west to run the new megaresort.

Boyd will operate the main hotel but has engaged other operators for three smaller boutique hotels. One will be focused on Asian tourists.

Free cash flow and bank financing will pay for the company’s share of the development cost, Boyd Gaming Chief Financial Officer Ellis Landau tells the wire. Joint venture partners will contribute financing, but no public offerings are expected.

So another big project is set to boost the north end of the Strip and the cynics are already asking themselves: How many luxury megaresorts does one town need? History makes it very hard to say we’re anywhere near the limit.