Vegas4Visitors Weekly Column by Rick Garman

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October 6, 2008 Vegas4Visitors Weekly by Rick Garman Construction Photos CityCenter Encore Echelon Fontainebleau Cosmoplitan

Construction Photos In this week's column we're going to be taking a look at the construction progress being made on five major resorts going up - or not as the case may be - on the Las Vegas Strip. All of these photos were taken within the last couple of weeks and although construction crews are working around the clock (or not at all) these offer a fairly accurate representation of what each of these properties looks like. A quick programming note: there will be no column next week, October 13, 2008 but when it returns the week after I'll be bringing you updated reviews of some of your favorite hotels, new restaurant reviews, show reviews, and much more. return to the top
CityCenter The amount of money MGM Mirage is spending on this place is mind-boggling: $9 billion... or maybe $11 billion depending on who you want to listen to, but certainly many many billions of dollars making this the most expensive privately financed construction project in American history. When it's complete it will feature more than 7,000 hotel and residential units, a giant casino, more than a half-million square-feet of shopping space, tons of restaurants and clubs, entertainment including an Elvis themed Cirque du Soleil show, more than $40 million worth of public art features, and its own people mover to get people from one end of the more than 60 acres it will encompass to the other. CityCenter is going up between Monte Carlo and Bellagio on the west side of The Strip and is expected to open in late 2009. The curved building at the right, is the Harmon Hotel, Spa, and Residences, which will feature 400 hotel rooms and more than 200 condos. Just to the left of that at the back of the property is the Vdara Condo Hotel with more than 1,500 residential units that the owners can rent out as hotel rooms. The towers on the left with the cranes are Aria, the main hotel with more than 4,000 rooms. The (relatively) low buildings at the front are part of The Crystals, the main shopping and entertainment complex. In this shot you can see more of the dramatic, cubist design of The Crystals. More of The Crystals at the base of the photo. On the right, the towers going up are Veer, two 37-story condo buildings that literally veer off at a 5-degree angle making them look like they are tilting. The glass tower on the left is the Mandarin Oriental, a boutique hotel with 400 rooms and more than 200 residences. Monte Carlo is right on the other side of the Mandarin and you can see New York-New York in the background. The center of CityCenter. Trying to get a sense of the size of this place. Another shot of the Harmon with Vdara in the background. return to the top Encore The sequel to the enormously successful Wynn Las Vegas is rapidly reaching completion as you can tell from the photos below. Encore is set to debut at the end of this year and will feature more than 2,000 hotel suites, a casino, a showroom, restaurants, nightclubs, and its own lobby, pool, and spa. It will be connected to Wynn Las Vegas both physically and functionally, with guests of the two hotels able to use the facilities of the other but it will operate as its own property. Shot from the north, you can see Palazzo and The Venetian in the background. The Wynn Las Vegas hotel tower is visible just to the right of Encore in the foreground. This picture makes it look like the two towers are right next to each other but there is actually a fair amount of room between the two. Note how close the base of Encore is to The Strip (where the orange cones are). Again, right along The Strip for easy access to the casino. The porte corchere is located between the Encore tower and the Wynn tower, which you can see reflecting in the glass of Encore. return to the top Echelon In the pictures below you won't see much activity. That's because the company behind Echelon Place, the $4 billion resort that is replacing The Stardust on the north end of The Strip, sent everybody home a couple of months ago deciding to put the construction on hold until the whole financial crisis gets un-crisisy. The opening date of the resort was originally supposed to be 2010, but that is now pushed to at least 2011. When it does finally open it will feature more than 5,000 rooms in no fewer than 5 different hotels: The main Echelon resort, the Echelon Suites, the Delano, the Mondrian, and the Shangri-La, the latter three being boutique hotels with about 500-800 rooms apiece. Work on the multiple towers was frozen at around floor 8. Don't expect it to change much in the next year. Cranes and construction trailers sitting idle. These photos were taken from The Strip facing vaguely northwest. If you look really closely you can see the pink roof of Adventuredome at Circus Circus through the open tower under construction in the center of the photo. return to the top Fontainebleau The Fontainebleau has been totally running under the radar of most Las Vegas visitors' consciousness - in fact while many could identify that CityCenter or Encore are being built, this one elicits a lot of shrugs and "what is that?" type questions. Pretty amazing that a $3 billion, nearly 4,000 room resort can be under the radar, huh? Designed to evoke rather than copy its famous Miami namesake, Fontainebleau will have a casino, shopping, entertainment, spa, pool, nightclubs, and all of the other attendant hoopla that goes along with a resort of this size. It is scheduled to open in late 2009. Looking north on The Strip, you can see The Stratosphere Tower in the background. At the base of the main Fontainebleau tower you can vaguely see The Riviera's mirrored main casino building (with the big star) and its beige hotel towers at the right of the photo. The main entrance is directly across from The Riviera's north casino entrance. Ditto. And again. return to the top Cosmopolitan The Cosmo, as it will affectionately become to be known, has had some struggles. Financing has been a problem even before the big economic turbulence of 2008 and that has only made it worse. The whole project sunk into foreclosure but the construction continues while a deal is being worked out with new owners to complete and operate the place. When it opens it will feature more than 3,000 condo/hotel and regular hotel units, a casino, shopping, entertainment, restaurants, and more. Whether it stays on target to open in 2009 is a whole other question. Wedged onto a tiny chunk of land, the Cosmopolitan features two towers - the squarish boxy one in front and the slightly more curved one just to the right and behind it. The tower to the left of the one in the foreground is part of CityCenter. The beige archway at the far right is the south entrance to Bellagio and if you look really, really closely you can see the Jockey Club timeshare building (just to the left of the archway) looking like its about to be eaten by all this big construction. From The Strip - both towers of Cosmopolitan. Glass towers to the left are CityCenter and you can get a glimpse of Bellagio on the far right. More of Cosmopolitan. return to the top

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