[wyliepoon]

Look who else is in a skyscraper proposal boom...

From Architectural Record:

Link to article

Largest Privately Financed Construction Project to Rise in Las Vegas

October 12, 2005


Images courtesy of MGM Mirage Inc.

MGM Mirage has recruited a who's-who list of celebrity architects for its mammoth Project CityCenter development on the Las Vegas Strip. The 18-million-square-foot complex of hotels, shops, casinos, and residences will be roughly the size of Rockefeller Center, New York's SoHo, and Times Square combined.

The $5-billion, 66-acre development is the largest privately financed construction project in U.S. history, according to MGM Mirage officials. Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, the firm responsible for Lower Manhattan's Battery Park City, is the master-plan architect, and Gensler is the executive architect.

The development centers on a soaring 4,000-room hotel-casino designed by Cesar Pelli, FAIA, which consists of two 60-story-tall crescent-shaped glass towers connected by a low-rise. Rafael Vinoly, FAIA, has created a curved 400-foot-high, 1,000-unit hotel-condo building set atop of pylons, while Vancouver-based James KM Cheng's plans include a twisting 100-unit residential tower. Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, meanwhile, is designing the exterior of a 400-room, five-star Mandarin hotel with interiors from Adam Tihany. Lord Norman Foster is responsible for another 400-room hotel operated by Andrew Sasson's Light Group, creators of the Light and Caramel nightclubs now at the Bellagio hotel.

Although the project is only halfway through a 20-month design cycle, it's anticipated to make its Strip debut in November of 2009.

Tony Illia

*****

An aerial view rendering that I've googled...

 

[Ed007Toronto]

Would have been neat to see City Place look like that. Or maybe not.

 

[adma]

I dunno, looks like Potsdamer Platz trying hard to be Empire State Plaza...

 

[ganjavih]

Yeah, I don't know about that... uh, no thanks.

 

[Archivistower]

I'm with Gang, as in, uh, no thanks. CityPlace is just fine with me. The difference, of course, is that Toronto is an actual city with an actual centre that actually exists, and Las Vegas is not an actual city, with an actual centre that actually exists. And this "City" "Center" will do nothing to change that.

I am not, in any way even imaginable, envious of Las Vegas.

 

[GeekyBoyTO]

Indeed, LV can keep it. Besides, the sort of tourists that storm the city are probably the ones to avoid like the plague in any event (easily impressed by acts of a crass nature).

GB

 

[Observer Walt]

Thank you for posting this Wylie, it's interesting to see, but I suspect would not work anywhere but Las Vegas.

 

[TdotTrickyRicky]

Is Las Vegas the Dubai of America, or is Dubai the Las Vegas of the Middle East?

 

[Canuck 36]

LV can keep their MASSIVE mega-blocks. I like our quasi-mega blocks just fine, thank you.

 

[spmarshall]

I must say, though that I found Las Vegas interesting in a macabre sense because of its phonyness. It is also worth pointing out that the "City Center" and the entire Las Vegas strip (except the Stratosphere) is in unincorporated Clark County, not in the City of Las Vegas, in which the downtown and Fremont Street are located.

I also agree that this type of project seems right only in unincorporated Clark County.

 

[wyliepoon]

but I suspect would not work anywhere but Las Vegas.

Actually there are quite a number of places in the world that are trying to do this. Dubai's already been mentioned. Macau, near Hong Kong is currently building an "official" replica of the Las Vegas Strip. Singapore and Malaysia, among other countries, are also building urban/gambling centres to attract tourism.

Cotai "Strip", Macau, China

 

[Archivistower]

I think it would be great if Macau could do replicas of New York, New York and Paris complexes in Las Vegas. Replicas of replicas. It would be so cool.

 

[building babel]

The Romans copied beautiful statues from Classical Greece. Because the Greek originals have since disappeared we only know of them through the copies.

Imagine if Dubai had built a replica of the WTC before 9/11.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ Imagine how easy it that would have made it for Marwan al-Shehhi et al. to blow the WTC up.

 

[adma]

Actually there are quite a number of places in the world that are trying to do this. Dubai's already been mentioned. Macau, near Hong Kong is currently building an "official" replica of the Las Vegas Strip. Singapore and Malaysia, among other countries, are also building urban/gambling centres to attract tourism.

And closer to home, we mustn't forget (sorta) Niagara Falls...