Where did you get the information that Carl Ichan is selling the Stratosphere?

im not sure i like it yet. i think they can do more with it...wait, SHOULD do more with it. esp. since its going to be the tallest in the US.

Here. Actually, I read it some place else first, but can't find that now, think it was in print, but now found this citation.

This bad mamma jamma gonna get built or what...??? :eat:

I hope this tower gets built. It would give LV one more reason for tourists to come, besides all the gambling etc. I do agree with Urban Sky that they should do more with it, considering it will be the tallest in the US. From that picture, it does not look all that spectacular in design.

Las Vegas is growing fast, this is just the next step in that growth. Las Vegas is known for going all-out in everything it does, so why not this!

I think that's site prep for the Fontainebleau, but not positive

That's the former Wet & Wild site where LVT is proposed. Fontaineblaeiou is back there where the cranes are in that big hole in the first photo. The two sites are side by side. I shot the photos from the top of the Sahara hotel parking garage.

Ahhhh..... I stand corrected. It was tough to determine the distance from the photo angles and I wasn't sure how big the sites were ..... but it's good to know something's going on there. Nice shots by the way.

Looks like they are done covering up the old pools and slides at Wet and Wild. They demolished most of the buildings now. Someone's going to hit a few chucks of concrete under there when they go to dig a foundation.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...I/CIMG0605.jpg

Jesus - is this serious - are they actually going to do it!?

What about all the air space regulations?

Something's going to be built there, one way or another...

why would u think the building is "too tall" for a medium sized city. who cares about the city's size. furthermore, Las Vegas has a metro area population of about 2 million people. thats pretty good sized, plus we are the fastest growing major city in the country. yeah, its not a groundbreaking design like the Chrysler Building or Empire State Building but for Vegas, it works. I live here and would love to see it built. Vegas would have the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere (assuming Chicago Spire is not built).

I think its perfect for vegas, because it looks like a gigantic tacky hotel. Sticks out like a sore thumb. It just seems a lot more thought went into making it tall than into actual design.

What theme does city center, Palms or Echelon Place have?? Gimmicky themes in las vegas have been killed stone dead by Steve Wynn since he opened his hotel in 2005. The trend is now towards mega five star hotel/condos and will continue so for a while yet. What theme does the 1150ft Stratosphere have by the way???

As for LVT looking ugly and being an eyesore. I seem to remember that the Parisian and French people described a certain Gustave Eiffel creation an "eyesore" about 100 years ago. If the LVT brings in tourists and helps re-generate the north strip, then those against this project will not look on it an an eyesore any more. And correct me if I am wrong but does Vegas not depend on tourists more than any other city on planet earth???

Why relieve the height restriction on the LVT and not on the Stratosphere 11 years ago. I think it is not fair that they get to have this advantage especially since air traffic, I would imagine, has increased in Las Vegas.

why not relieve the height restriction. this building, like many other things can have a powerful impact on Las Vegas from an economic standpoint. Tourism, already huge , would be even bigger. you cant tell me people would not come to see this thing. Furthermore, the north strip area would especially benefit. for the record, i have no problem with Strat. going higher. Lets hope the Lobbyists that Milam (developer for LVT) hired can get the job done with the FAA. We will find out in early May for sure.

BTW, do you live in Vegas Taurus. you seem unusually opposed to this building for some reason.....

Wait let me understand this....were these FAA height restrictions or just city held height restrictions because if they were FAA restrictions i find that completely unfair, miami has been fighting for years with the faa to loosen restrictions over downtown miami with no compromise ever found, although studies have shown that there would be no risk in doing it...which shows how las vegas gets away with anything in this country.

How the did this turn into a Chicago vs Vegas thread?

Anyway, the FAA has no restrictions in the LVT area but it is right next to a "300 feet of clearance below a flight altitude of 3,020 feet" restricted airport circling area. What they need from the FAA is the FAA's blessing, which actually seems to be more political than logistical and a complicated formality that takes about 120 days to complete for something this tall. They also need the blessing from the Director of McCarran International. Bob Stupak was the political arch enemy of the Director at the airport back when he started building the Strat, so that's where they ran into trouble, not to mention their lack of funds. Also, Stratosphere Tower is within the city limits and their permitting requirements are different than the county, and don't obey the airport's opinion as strictly as the county does. The Airport totally rejected the entire Stratosphere project for political reasons, but the city gave Stupak the permits anyway. They were already planning to go the 1,800 feet, but Stupak didn't have the money to do it. New 1,800 foot plans were introduced after it was complete and had a new owner, but while they were trying to figure out how to pay for it 9/11 shot down those plans. Or at least that's how I understand the history of that.

Okay, maybe I over reacted, I'll reduce the size of that type. The same thing happened on SSC a month ago when a bunch of Dubai forumers started pooping all over the LVT thread for no reason at all except petty rivalry.

As for the design, personally, I'm extremely board with the over-sized box shapes of most of the mega hotels in Vegas, which is the usual criticism leveled at us by architecture fans (read the reactions to the Echelon rendering in the Las Vegas thread), and the LVT shape breaks that mold in a very major way without using a hokey themed gimmick. Regardless of what you think of the design, the mechanics of the building are very logical. "The LVT structure is composite steel and concrete for reasons of both speed and cost." "It is a tripod, which is the most efficient structural shape for a super-tall building". With 3,975 rooms and 4.5-million square feet of floor space (including the podium), efficiency is very import. "This shape also maximizes curtain wall area, minimizes view conflicts, and minimizes walking distances for guests." "The sky lobbies, represented by bands around the tower, sit above, and physically adjacent to, the MEP floors. These MEP floors contain the elevator overrides for the stacks below, along with all MEP equipment for the stack." "Each sky lobby serves approximately 60 floors with five lower and five upper-zone single-cab elevators serving approximately 30 floors each. This organization allows the express elevators to drop away above the sky lobby they serve, and for the locals to share the same shafts in each of the three tiers (so there are three tiers, containing two zones each, for a total of six zones). This is an extremely efficient organization which reduces the core size to about 40% of what it would otherwise be."