City Center Hoped To Make Waves in Vegas- Part 1
If you’ve been watching Las Vegas news, undoubtedly you have heard about The City Center. It’s a huge $8.5 billion construction that is going to be on the Strip. This past week Nevada gaming regulators gave operators their license to complete the development. Many expected the continued construction to go ahead without a hitch, but the gaming board still warned the building company that they were going to be doing “extensive research and background checking” for the approval to move forward with the plan. The gaming board did do their homework. They did a comprehensive study of the facility’s background information as prepared by the state’s gaming agents as well as reading a transcript from the previous week’s Gaming Control Board hearing. The vote was unanimous, but thoroughly reviewed prior to making a decision to give the Aria resort the gaming license. The license allows the hotel-casino to open on December 16th of this year.
One commission member, John Moran Jr. said, “A project like this couldn’t come at any better time for our community.” Moran is referring to the state of the Law Vegas economy. Though the rest of the world has declared the recession officially over, Las Vegas still hasn’t returned to its former revenue standing. The city has suffered greatly throughout the past year and analysts are even saying that it’s now operating at about a 60% decline in revenues. That’s making things almost unmanageable for some casinos and others are having to file bankruptcy to maintain their operations. It’s a difficult time in the city and no sight of reinvigoration is in sight.
Despite the state of the economy there are high hopes for the City Center and its success. MGM Mirage Chairman and CEO Jim Murren discussed how much hope officials have for the project. He said, “Failure is not an option for us.” Murren knows full well that without something to spur the economy back into growth, Las Vegas could be in serious peril.
The Aria hotel is the only casino in the City Center and the facility includes boutique hotels, high-rise residential units and a 500,000-square-foot retail, dining and entertainment district. Other grand openings include Vdara, which is a 1,500-room hotel, The Crystals retail center and the Mandarin oriental Hotel. City Center is owned under a 50-50 joint venture agreement between MGM Mirage and Dubai World, the investment arm of the Persian Gulf. The joint venture may come as a surprise to some though due to the problems between the two parties. The MGM Mirage and Dubai World have had issues in the past but managed to resolve them to move forward in the City Center development.
Part two coming next.
Tags: City Center, economy, Las Vegas
