The movie studio that gave the world Ben-Hur and The Wizard of Oz wanted Reno. MGM scouted locations in 1975, purchased the gravel pit, and fast-tracked a 26-story, 1,015-room tower that opened with media fanfare on May 3, 1978. Among its opening attractions: a $2 million, 2,000-seat jai alai fronton, one of only two on the entire West Coast. The Basque sport drew modest crowds at first, averaging 678 spectators nightly. But by November 1980, after failing to secure a television deal with San Francisco stations, the pelota courts fell silent. The protective screens stayed up for months, as if the sport might return. It never did. The space eventually became the 48,000-square-foot Summit Pavilion.

Bally Manufacturing paid over $550 million for MGM's gaming properties in 1986, inheriting a property that had just added a 900-room expansion. But Bally's brought debt, not dreams. By 1990, the company struggled under $1.8 billion in obligations. When Bally filed for bankruptcy in February 1992, Hilton swooped in with an $83 million bid, outmaneuvering Harveys Casino for the prize. Under Hilton, the property shed its Hollywood glamour for a Western theme, backed by $86 million in renovations. The ownership structure grew byzantine: Hilton spun off gaming into Park Place Entertainment in 1999, which became Caesars Entertainment in 2003 after acquiring Caesars World. When Harrah's merged with Caesars in 2005, Hilton wanted out entirely.

The Grand Sierra Resort Corp paid $151 million in 2006 and immediately began transforming the property, spending nearly $100 million on renovations including hotel-condos called The Summit on floors 17 through 27. Then came October 2008 and the financial crisis. The ownership group defaulted on their JPMorgan loans. The bank foreclosed and handed operations to Las Vegas turnaround specialists. In 2011, Alex Meruelo of the Meruelo Group saw opportunity where others saw failure. He paid $42 million in cash for 145 acres of prime Reno real estate. Meruelo, who made his fortune in restaurant chains, television stations, and construction, was no gambler by trade. But he knew how to resurrect a struggling property.

For eleven years, the Donn Arden production Hello Hollywood Hello dazzled audiences in the resort's Grand Theatre, a 2,995-seat venue built around what remains the world's largest indoor stage, spanning more than a full acre. Over seven million people watched the show before Bally's pulled the curtain on April 18, 1989. No production show in Reno's history ran longer. Today, the renovated Grand Theatre hosts everything from concerts to the Miss USA pageant, which came to the venue in 2019, 2022, and 2023. The original MGM-era ceilings survive, a reminder of the studio's grand vision.

The Grand Sierra now boasts the largest casino floor in Reno and Northern Nevada: over 80,000 square feet of slots, video poker, and table games. A $1 billion expansion announced in September 2023 promises an 800-room tower, 300 workforce housing units, and a 10,000-seat arena set to become home to University of Nevada Wolf Pack basketball by 2027. From gravel pit to Northern Nevada's largest gaming destination, the Grand Sierra keeps reinventing itself, each chapter written by new owners with new visions. The tower that once bore a lion's name now belongs to a restaurant entrepreneur. The story continues.