LAS VEGAS | Boom Project Rundown! 2.0 - Page 61

ScottG · #**1201** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 6:23 AM**

well, actually - i just looked it up on the diagrams list (now that the milam tower diagram has been approved) and it is the 7th proposed/underconstructiontower---second in the nation tho

does anyone know when the commissioners meeting is for the tower proposal? it would be interesting to watch that on tv..im sure there will be many many meeting...to allow the nimbys- i mean public to voice their opinion..... but to avoid daja vu- why didnt the commissioners approve the original stratosphere height? wouldnt it have been the same as the milam tower? so then what makes this proposal any different?

but i guess the one thing it does have it going in its favor is that the strat was built....it wouldnt be as of an effect if there are already tall towers near by....

wait i remember reading the brochures for the ivana tower and it said that the surrounding properties were under some variance that prohibited anything taller than 400 ft or something...? promoting that their views wouldnt be obstructed...maybe the milam site was too far away to consider....speaking of...any news of these developers in question to revive ivana/summit?

lets get THREE supertalls on that end of the strip!!!!

Steven C. · #**1202** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 7:20 AM**

A note on why milam would be great and absolutely terrible for the north end of the strip (imo)

First of all, i work in front of the old stardust and across the street from it. I book timeshare appointments, and I can tell you what my opinion of the milam building would be.

If built, it will be a boon for the north end of the strip. Consider the current surroundings:

-Sahara (possibly being sold in the time it would take to build milam)
-Hilton Grand Vacation Club (likely expanding sometime - who knows when)
-Circus Circus (rumored to be closed orr extensively redone sometime in the next few years)
-Riviera (chance of this being sold or reno'ed soon)
-Conrad Majestic (will this ever be built?)

Believe it or not, the closure of the stardust did not impact the area as much as people thought it would. The stratosphere still remains as a good room value on the north end, and the circus circus and frontier are still FULL of people who are on mini-vacation packages from Tahiti Village or Europeans who know nothing about the resorts other than the fact that "Diamonds are Forever" was filmed there years ago...

So the addition of 5000 rooms would be great for the area... If built (and let's assume that the super ambitions figure of 1 floor a week for encore's current construction and strecth it to 1.5 floors a week due to the girth of the building) it would take about 100 weeks to finish... by then Echelon place will be done, and the frontier will likely be closed (the frontier has their lease through the end of 2007 btw) which means that there will be new need for rooms in the area...

But then consider the logistics of the project.

My usual route to work (parking at the "gold key shops" near the kimchi place and the church) would take me down charleston to LVB and straight to the parking lot...

Sky las vegas has had the street tied up for months... and that is for a single condo about 50 stories tall... if you consider the 2-3 years required to build something like milam, you need to tie traffic up for that long, and then after it is done, you have another 5000 possible rooms worth of people who need to get up to the strip, who may have originally stopped at the riv, but now need to go up past to this project's site.

i want to see the largest building in the country here... where i live. and i never cry NIMBY, but is this at all feasable?

Steven C. · #**1203** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 7:24 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottG

five hundy by midnight is reporting that the luxor is taking all but 2 egyptian themed stores, and might take down the sphinx in front of the hotel to replace it with retail.....the workers at the luxor are saying that they want to stray away from the egyptian theme......

might be hard considering the hotel is...a...pyramid...

maybe not impossible, considering that part of the current MGM grand is another hotel if i recall correctly.

If played right, they could change the entire building to swallow up the pyramid, and keep it an interesting part of how it looks.

ScottG · #**1204** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 8:40 AM**

youre right about mgm absorbing a hotel,but it was a small MOTEL almost, and it is just the front bottom leg that had the facade redone. i dont think the luxor will be remodeled. it WILL always be the eqyptian reort in vegas, just not as heavily themed as it is....i'd think they just want to modernize it a bit....like take out some of the ornaments that weight it down...think of it like the renovation at aladdin, how they took out all the plastic 'gems' along every wall on the interior.

the theme is just everywhere, and i think they just want to take down a bit. they CANT make it into another hotel. its a pyramid, the expansion towers are in pyramid forms. they wouldnt spend the money to redo the facade to end up with a dead end, different colored pyramid. no no- luxor will stay the luxor just not as themed.

but taking out the sphinx suprises me....that is the center peice!

mdiederi · #**1205** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 2:29 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottG

does anyone know when the commissioners meeting is for the tower proposal? it would be interesting to watch that on tv..im sure there will be many many meeting...to allow the nimbys- i mean public to voice their opinion.....

One of the articles said it would come back up for review in March.

Quote:

but to avoid daja vu- why didnt the commissioners approve the original stratosphere height? wouldnt it have been the same as the milam tower? so then what makes this proposal any different?

but i guess the one thing it does have it going in its favor is that the strat was built....it wouldnt be as of an effect if there are already tall towers near by....

wait i remember reading the brochures for the ivana tower and it said that the surrounding properties were under some variance that prohibited anything taller than 400 ft or something...? promoting that their views wouldnt be obstructed...maybe the milam site was too far away to consider....speaking of...any news of these developers in question to revive ivana/summit?

lets get THREE supertalls on that end of the strip!!!!

Both the Strat and Summit are in the city limits and have different rules. For instance, the city doesn't have a law that says they can't overrule an FAA recommendation. That's how the Strat got approved. The FAA rejected the current height, but the city approved it anyway. Whereas, the county has an actual law that says they can't issue a building permit if the FAA says "no".

mdiederi · #**1206** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 2:33 PM**

Quote:

Station Casinos received County Commission approval for Durango Station at Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway.

Phase one will feature 400 rooms, a 120,000-square-foot casino, movie theater, banquet hall and pool areas. A second phase will include a 600-room tower, entertainment center and expanded banquet facility.

Station is mum on when it plans to break ground on Durango Station, and it may not happen for years.
.

Last week Station Casinos management announced plans to take the company private, with Colony Capital (owners of Las Vegas Hilton) as a silent financial partner. Probably won't be any ground breaking on new projects until that is finalized, which shouldn't take too long if there are no competing bids. IMHO, the Aliante and Durango neighborhoods aren't built up enough yet to support more local's casinos. Red Rock is already cannibalizing their other casinos. Instead, I would like to see Station Casinos develop their huge Wild Wild West site next to I-15 at Trop, and tap into the strip tourist market.

mdiederi · #**1207** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 2:38 PM**

Quote:

LOOKING IN ON: GAMING

Harrah's keeps plans grand, but quiet
By Liz Benston
Las Vegas Sun

Harrah's Entertainment has delayed announcing details of its center-Strip redevelopment plans, pending a potential deal to take the company private. But officials aren't sitting on their hands.

The company's proposed 1,017-room hotel tower at its Caesars Palace flagship is scheduled to go before the Clark County Commission on Dec. 20 for approval. Also proposed is a nearly 150,000-square-foot building to replace the Roman Plaza with casino space, restaurants, retail stores, bars and convention areas.

The convention center at the south end of the property also would grow.

Before dismissing these plans as just the latest baubles to be shoehorned onto the property, consider that Harrah's has still grander goals across the street, with the makeover of Barbary Coast, Flamingo, Imperial Palace and Harrah's casinos.

Harrah's spokesman David Strow said all the plans will be unveiled at once, likely next year.

I read another analysis in Motley Fool http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/...ce=y&bounce2=y that predicted the company might be broken up with the possibility of Las Vegas Sands (Venetian) buying the Harrah's-Imperial Palace-Flamingo-Barbary lots and replicating what Adelson is doing on Macau's Cotai Strip. Pure conjecture, of course.

ScottG · #**1208** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 5:55 PM**

so if thats how the strat height got approved...why didnt they approve the original height- making it twice its current height? compromise?

i would doubt the faa will approve a height twice the height of the strat....

why do developers even think they can get something approved if the faa continuously turns down heights that are lower than what they want to do...

AND even if it was approved...how come sup with the 5 biliong price tag? not to mention the rising construction costs....unless, as i constantingly have said, once city center is complete prices will go down and there will be another huge boom until there are too many taking over the labor supply

sky-of-webs · #**1209** Posted **Dec 10, 2006, 6:53 PM**

The strat was originally approved at 1080 feet and more than fifty percent built when Bob Stupak decided to go for the worlds tallest structure at around 5 feet higher than the cn tower. That is when the major conflict with not the faa but Robert Broadbent the Mcarren head official started. Robert was a former county official and like most people in Vegas had a hatred for Mr. Stupak. For the height increase Broadbent gathered as many people as he could find to derail that addition, including Faa people, computer modelers and pilots that filmed take off and landings from the north facing runways.
Ultimately the reason the City council denied the height was fear of a possible faa changing flight patterns on heavy north or south windy days for what was well understood to be only a mast addition for the height. Although there was going to be an additional observation deck at 1500 feet they just couldn't approve an antenae, even though they did want the prestige of the tallest in the world. The city caved in to threats.
Note the final height built was still 70 feet taller than originally planned.

Of course it well guessed that if Steve Wynn had come up with the proposal he would have been allowed to build it right on the end of the runway and included a waterfall from the top. LOL

OH, and at the time the tallest buildings on the strip were 330 feet, a strip- county set top out height. That instantly changed do to the building of the Strat. Go on check it out.

And the Milam is Condo-resort rooms.... Bruce Hiatt sells those.

Don Pacho · #**1210** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 12:40 AM**

Allure

Turnberry Towers

.

BrandonJXN · #**1211** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 1:14 AM**

Wow..Allure pretty much showed up overnight.

Is there any news on H.U.E.?

LMich · #**1212** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 3:31 AM**

I'm really kind of disappointed how similar the Allure, Turnberry, and Sky have all appear. Nice towers, but they all look significantly different than their renderings, which made each of these projects seem unique.

mdiederi · #**1213** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 3:46 AM**

Speaking of renderings, here are some from Adrian Smith, courtesy of cmilam.

The correct name for what we've been calling the "Milam Tower" is actually the "Las Vegas Tower".

vegasrain84 · #**1214** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 4:44 AM**

I was informed that some of the architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have had some concerns about my drawing of the "Las Vegas Tower" here on Skyscraperpage. In light of the newest images provided, I wanted to see if anyone else would like to draw a more satisfactory drawing of the tower. After 3 days working on the drawing, I do not want to start over as you can imagine, so that is why I am asking others to consider redrawing the tower.
Thanks

future29 · #**1215** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 6:05 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdiederi

is that port cochere on Paradise Rd? im trying to figure out whats north and also what properties around the LVT will be effected by the huge shadow it casts.

LMich · #**1216** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 6:22 AM**

Yes, that would be on Paradise. If my bearings are correct, this looks to be looking west (slightly southwest) over Paradise.

ScottG · #**1217** Posted **Dec 11, 2006, 7:51 AM**

kinda weird that there are three 'sky lobbies'..notice the top floor is an observation deck.......so then why have the stratosphere anymore?????

im suprised by the amount of work already put into this project.....maybe they really willfight for it BUT is the money going to show up when the construction price is given?