[jazfingr]

Regarding The Plaza:

In cities (like New York) each old building stood alone; a testimonial to its architect. You never saw a cluster of buildings with the same architecture. That's where the design for The Plaza fails. Instead of all the buildings being the same, they might consider using different architecture for the skinny towers (maybe even modern) and letting the main hotel building keep the resemblance of the original Plaza.

Frankly, I like the idea of skinny towers - fewer rooms per floor=a more exclusive feel for the owners. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to pull the plug on the residential element, based on the over-saturation of unsuccessful Strip condo projects.