Vegas project going to new heights

UPDATE A reader writes, Your story about the Las Vegas City Center does have a racing connection. The gentleman heading up the project is Bobby Baldwin, former 'World Series of Poker Champion' and frequent very successful off road racer with his son including many wins at the Baja 1000 and other major races. Fred Marik

02/26/07 [Editor's Note: Although not specifically racing related, this article talks about a massive project in Las Vegas and underscores the fact that the city is still booming. With Champ Car racing in downtown Las Vegas starting in 2007, it appears their timing was perfect and could benefit from a building boom in "the city that never sleeps."] When hundreds of architects descended on Las Vegas two years ago for their annual convention, organizers scanned the Strip for tour ideas and rolled snake eyes.

The pyramid? The faux Eiffel Tower? Not exactly paragons of high design.

Out of desperation, organizers chartered buses to cart the group to Death Valley and the Nevada Test Site at Yucca Mountain.

"We had to stretch it a bit," conceded Vegas-based architect Windom Kimsey, former chair of the American Institute of Architects' Committee on Design. "The level of sophistication was lacking."

In a morphing city where hotels and casinos are built and razed and built again, a massive new development seeks to make a lasting mark on the city's skyline. Project CityCenter — MGM Mirage's 76 acres of densely packed condos and hotels designed by some of the country's premier architects — may finally put Las Vegas on the architectural map and usher in a cosmopolitan reincarnation of the town better known for kitsch and over-the-top theming.

"This takes the Las Vegas evolution to the next level," said Terry Jicinsky, vice president of marketing for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority

"When Steve Wynn opened the Mirage with the heavily themed resort concept, everything that came after that followed suit," he said. "It's probably a reasonable assumption that this will set the bar for new things that are constructed in Las Vegas."

The $7-billion Project CityCenter is the largest privately financed project in the country. The mega-resort includes a hotel-casino, convention center, retail and entertainment space, condos and two boutique hotels, all nestled between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo hotel-casinos on the site of the old Boardwalk Hotel and Casino. After just two weeks on the market, 90% of the condominium units in one of the project's condo-hotels have been sold, with prices starting at $1.5 million. More at LA Times