Once the Barbary Coast becomes part of Harrah's Entertainment this week, Boyd Gaming Corp. will not have a presence on the Strip -- 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 $4.4 billion 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 planned 5,000-room 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 company casino to the Strip is The Orleans, a few miles west on Tropicana Avenue.

But lacking a Strip address doesn't bother Boyd Gaming President Keith Smith.

"We'll have a pretty large project under development and I think the scale size of the project will be all the focus we need," Smith said

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