Las Vegas rolls the dice on CityCenter

by Melanie Nayer on

Talk about placing big bets.

It took a team of investors, architects, designers, art collectors, luxury buyers and acrobats to strike gold on this deal, but the gamble paid out. The city-within-a-city concept, aptly named CityCenter, debuted this week in Las Vegas and it was nothing short of extraordinary.

The “community” center in Las Vegas features five hotels/resorts inside a shopping center filled with luxury retail shops and surrounded by a fine art collection from international artists. The ARIA Resort & Casino was the CityCenter’s first official opening, met with fireworks and fanfare. The ARIA is the first of many attractions opening at CityCenter over the next few months — three hotels, one residential living facility and and retail and entertainment district will welcome guests to these lavish digs.

Here’s the lay of the land:

The 18-million-square-feet (68-acre) project was developed by MGM MIRAGE in partnership with Infinity World Development Corp and is said to be the most expensive privately funded construction project in U.S. history. It sits on the Las Vegas Strip between Frank Sinatra Drive and Las Vegas Boulevard. The $11+-billion project will open in two phases – the first phase is located between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo; the second phase will take the space between Monte Carlo and New York New York. The CityCenter is, for all intense and purposes, a small city complete with hotels, residences, shopping, dining, a fire station and its own power-plant. It’s the first ‘city’ to receive LEED® Gold certifications for its buildings by the by the U.S. Green Building Council.The focal point of the city is the 4,004-room ARIA Hotel & Resort, which opened earlier this week. The ARIA features a a spa, 16 restaurants, 10 bars, three pools (including one adults-only pool) and entertainment featuring Viva ELVIS™ by Cirque du Soleil®.

“ARIA and CityCenter reflect a combination of innovation, energy and visionary design that we believe will reshape how the world views the destination resort experience and attract visitors from around the globe as a landmark of taste and style,” said Jim Murren, Chairman and CEO of MGM MIRAGE.

The additional hotels include:

The Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas: Non-gaming hotel with 392 guestrooms and 225 residences; resort spa; 6 restaurants and the 23rd floor Sky Lobby.
Vdara: Non-gaming, smoke-free hotel featuring 1,495 suites, a full-service wellness spa, salon and fitness center, and the Sky Pool & Lounge.
Veer Towers: Two 37-story glass towers with more than 300 residences in modern, loft-like designs. Studios, one, two and three bedroom apartments and penthouses are available ranging from 500- to 3,000-square-feet.
The Harmon Hotel: Set to open in late-2010, the non-gaming hotel will have 400 guestrooms and suites, a MR CHOW restaurant, hair Salon by Frédéric Fekkai and 24/7 butler service.

In the middle of it all is Crystals, the the 500,000-square-foot retail and entertainment shopping district. Luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Bulgari, Carolina Herrera, and restaurant options from Wolfgang Puck, Eva Longoria Parker, and Todd English will welcome guests. Throughout the city’s public space will be fine art displays from some renowned sculpture artists, including Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, Claes Oldenburg, Coosje Van Bruggen, Nancy Rubins, Frank Stella, Henry Moore, and Richard Long.

The MGM-MIRAGE CityCenter is nothing short of extraordinary. As Nevada comes off a year plagued with 13% unemployment and a significant drop in tourism, the CityCenter complex aims to bring back the sensationalistic, sultry decadence recently lost somewhere along the Las Vegas Strip. While it’s easy to drop a small fortune in the ‘city,’ don’t despair – after all, this is Vegas and absolutely anything can happen.

Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Budget Travel helps you plan a nonstop Caribbean getaway

by Katie Hammel on

As the northern half of the US starts to get cold and skies turn grey with threats of snow, thoughts naturally begin to turn to weekend getaways to warmer climes. The Caribbean is calling, but when it takes two or more connections to get there from your city, it’s hard to escape for a quick weekend warm-up.

If you don’t know which islands can be reached in one flight from where you live, Budget Travel can help. The magazine has a new online tool that can help make planning a trip to the Caribbean islands a little easier. Their “Nonstop Caribbean” destination finder shows you which islands are accessible via nonstop flight from your city. It also tells you which airlines make the flight and how long the flight lasts. The tool can even help you plan your vacation, with suggestions on which hotels to stay at and what activities to do on the island.

An inside look at off-the-books elite airline programs

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Imagine an airline experience free of middle seats, standing in line or dealing with nut-job flight attendants who withhold orange juice, water and any other service not related to “safety.” Tom Stuker, it seems, doesn’t have to close his eyes and pretend: he lives the dream. He’s spent 700,000 in non-middle seats this year alone, with complimentary cocktails, a hidden check-in process and a taste of luxury not present even in first class having become the norm for him.

Now, with 8.8 million miles racked up on United over his travel-intensive career, Stuker has been admitted to an elite frequent flier program, of the sort we covered here at Gadling not to long ago. This is the type of secret society noted in George Clooney‘s new flick, “Up in the Air.” Airlines don’t like to talk about it, but they actually do treat people well on occasion. You just have to spend a fortune to matter enough to them.

United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski Janikowski likens the airlines super-duper-premium offer, Global Services, to Yale’s Skull and Bones society. Like the elite underworld of the Ivy League, its members include CEOs, senators and other people envied by the rest of us.

So, how does this work?

1. You get a special check-in area. Avoid the great unwashed, and get greeted by name, as a concierge, of sorts, dispatches with your bags quickly. Your boarding passes will be waiting for you. At some airports, you’ll be able to pass through a hidden door to the front of the security checkpoint.

2. You’ll be watched. When? Well, when you move to the front of anything. We are all aware of those guys who occasionally are allowed to board before the elderly – before any announcements are made.

3. You’ll choose first. For everything, all the time. The meal will come to you before anyone else even knows there’s food on the plane.

4. Your lost luggage is scouted. If the airline loses your luggage, they actually try to find your luggage. Actively. A special team takes care of this.

None of this is truly life-changing, though, except the security piece. The real value of being a member of this type of secret society becomes apparent when something goes wrong … not unusual when airline employees are involved.

If you have a connection that’s too tight, the airline will rebook you on the next available flight – while you are still in the sky. A special agent will meet you at the gate with your new boarding pass, and a set of wheels will be furnished to take you to the next gate. If you need to go through security again, you’ll be escorted personally. In rare cases, a car will be waiting for you to dart you across the tarmac to your next plane. Terminals are for prolie scum.

Thinking back to Stuker, he’s got insane props with several airlines, but his favorite is United, because, “I am treated like a king.” Simply, he notes, “If I was in coach, I would shoot myself.”

A380 encounters trouble – again

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Everyone was eager to see the Air France A380 leave New York and head for Paris this week, but a fuel-tank issue kept it on the ground at JFK. This was the second problem the world’s largest plane had in getting off the ground since it started bouncing between New York and Paris just under a month ago.

The A380 is nothing short of hefty, accommodating 511 passengers, and it gets thirsty. So, when the airline found that fuel wasn’t moving properly between its tanks, it had to keep the beast on the tarmac. The 21 A380s in operation by four airlines have completed 8,700 flights and carried 3 million passengers.

The plane’s maiden flight was from Paris to New York on November 20, 2009. A week later, an Air France A380 had to return to New York after only 90 minutes in the air because of a technical issue that wasn’t disclosed.

CityCenter Las Vegas time lapse video

by Justin Glow on


After more than three years of construction, and an estimated $8.5-billion budget, CityCenter — Las Vegas’s newest money pit — opened for business yesterday. Three years isn’t that long, really, when you consider the size of the Strip’s largest project to date. At nearly 17-million square feet spread across 76 acres, this city-within-a-city boasts thousands upon thousands of rooms spread across nearly a half-dozen hotels, multiple casinos, countless restaurants, entertainment and retail districts, residential condos, and the Strip’s first grocery store.

And now you can watch it all come together in the Las Vegas Sun’s timlepase video above. They make it seem so easy!