Downtown Sights and Ruminations

I had to head downtown today to do an interview at the spankin' new and hyper-green Molasky Corporate Center, the state's first building to be certified LEED Gold. There were lots of interesting things about it, from the insulation made from old jeans to the hardwood flooring that comes from old phone poles to the fact that the parking garage floors were named "Conserve" and "Solar" and stuff like that.

My favorite thing, though, had nothing to do with the carbon footprint. It was this unusual bit of public art, a mammoth chess board that people can actually play on.


From the top floor, we could look down and see the mile-long train on the Union Pacific tracks of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Evidently, they're in town. I hate the circus. It made me sad to think that all those poor animals were idled in those train cars in 100+ heat and I couldn't do anything about it. Sad. Say what you will about Las Vegas, this is the city that proved that you make billions staging cruelty-free circuses starring - wait for it - humans!


And finally, a question: What the heck is up with this discoloration at the Golden Nugget?


Anyone know?

UPDATE, 4:05 pm PT: Justin McVay, the Golden Nugget's publicist, writes in that they're testing out different facade looks in trying to decide what look to go with for their new 500-room, $150m tower due to be finished in late 2009. The blue crane in the foreground of the photo is part of that. It's fascinating -- and surprising -- that they'd use the actual building to test out looks. That's a pretty big experiment, and even so I can't get my head around what it would look like writ large across the tower.

MGM Mirage To Build In China's Armpit

MGM Mirage announced this morning a joint venture with a Chinese company to build a mixed use facility in Tianjin, a very industrial port city about an hour from Beijing. The plan includes two towers that includes a luxury hotel, residential units, a spa and, of course, convention space. Oh, and a 350-room MGM Grand Tianjin plus 50 SkyLofts and 60 residences.

What will definitely be missing? GAMING! The Chinese government won't allow it anywhere other than Macau, at least not yet. Hence we have the MGM Mirage's first step towards moving on globally from casinos. Remember, CEO Terry Lanni recently suggested they might split the company and have one arm focused on hospitality? This would seem like the first significant stop, which surprises me because I thought they'd build some more MGM Grands in the U.S. first.

But here's the real thing. I've been to Tianjin. It's a gross place. Awful. See? Polluted like Beijing, but no culture, no important historic monuments, nothing but an overcrowded port. The third biggest urban area in China, with 10.2 million people. Evidently the city is so low on the totem that, while the 2008 Olympics are being shared amongst several lovely northeastern Chinese cities including my favorite, Qingdao, (home of the Tsingtao brewery, yay!), Tianjin gets just one small role, some early-round soccer matches. I will admit that the Olympic stadium built there does look sensational -- in renderings.

I even have a Starbucks mug from Tianjin from which I am sipping my morning coffee. I love it. That's the best thing I can say about the town. The reason you've never heard of it is because there is nothing touristy about Tianjin. It would be like opening up in Trenton.

So why, why, why is MGM Mirage staking their first overseas non-gaming venture there? I don't mean to doubt the potential profits to be had and I suspect the city has offered an unbeatable tax deal given that this could put the place on the map for the West in a small way. But if they wanted to make a splash, why not Beijing or Shanghai or Xi'an first? Maybe even an MGM Grand Lhasa?

I'm sure they've done their market research and the level of development and investment isn't really that huge, especially at Chinese labor prices, but I'm just puzzled they couldn't come up with something more glamorous out of the gate.

Last Week's Las Vegas Weekly Column

Sorry, I didn't post this last week for some odd reason. Here's this week's Las Vegas Weekly column, looking at all the money Las Vegas has lost because Nevadans banned same-sex marriage.

Nevada's gay duh
Leaving millions on the table in the name of -- ready for it? -- morality

By STEVE FRIESS

Next week, when Californians start allowing same-sex couples to legally marry as a result of a recent state Supreme Court ruling, the Golden State will reap a massive financial bonanza that should go a long way through the summer toward softening the harshest impacts of an ongoing recession and record fuel prices.

Over the border in Nevada, the folks running those little gambling joints along Las Vegas Boulevard will meanwhile be crying in their red-state beers. Because of the utter hypocrisy, stupidity and basic mean-spiritedness of the Silver State’s electorate, Las Vegas will miss out on untold millions of dollars in tourism spending that could’ve been for being on the forefront of the coming gay-marriage tsunami. If there’s anything casino bosses despise, it’s leaving money on the table.

This column is not about the morality of same-sex marriage. Of course, I know well from personal experience that two men or two women can love one another as honorably or dishonorably as any man and woman. The notion that any couple’s relationship has a bearing on the validity and strength of anyone else’s lives is so idiotic on its face that it doesn’t even deserve a serious response.

Nor ought it be necessary to note that for 70 percent of the voters in a state that has done more historically to undermine the sanctity of marriage than any other locale in human history to believe they have a moral imperative to protect children from having two moms but not prostitution and bare asses on taxi cabooses is so laughable that I urge you to stop reading now if you don’t see why. I don’t want such morons in my audience.

Yet, voters here in two successive elections did just that, the rigamarole required to alter the Nevada Constitution. For the first time, the document had discrimination added to it.

No, this column is about the cost that that irresponsible and bigoted decision has wrought on the state.

“We estimate that over the next three years, the California decision will generate $700 million in spending on weddings, so obviously Nevada is missing out on a piece of that pie,” said Gary Gates of the University of California School of Law, who studies the demographics of American gays. “We estimate that this will add more than $50 million in taxes to the state’s coffers and create more than 2,000 jobs. The unique position in Nevada is that Vegas is clearly known for weddings. That’s an easy fit.”

Or it would’ve been.

Read the rest here

A very cool then-and-now document

Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Bill Lerner issued a fascinating document today examining the state of Vegas construction. Some of it is hard-core business jargon, but most of it is pretty interesting even for those of us lay-junkies. The best part are the pages of before-and-after photos of various Strip projects. Like this of the new Caesars tower:


I've gotten permission to post it for you to download. Click here to grab the pdf.

The Strip is LIVE tonight w/ JAMES CAAN

Join us at 7 pm for the live version of "The Strip" featuring a fantastic and newsworthy chat with James Caan tonight! Plus, news from Vegas, the trivia question, a new poll and, as always, the Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week.

Come to LVRocks.Com and chat with fellow listeners! As always, if you can't make it, hooray! Be that way. Grab the podcast on Thursday.

Congrats, Patti LuPone!

Miles mocked me when I got excited that Patti LuPone was coming to Vegas back in November 2007. Now we're both thrilled we had her on "The Strip" -- when she hinted at something big she had coming up. She didn't want to talk about it because she didn't want to jinx it, but it turned out to be the role in "Gypsy" that tonight won her her second Tony Award for Best Actress on a Musical.

Congrats to her! In honor of that triumph, we've reissued that episode of the show in the feed. You can hear it here or right-click here to save it and hear it whenever you wish.

EXCLUSIVE: What FB's iMac Screens Will Look Like

(UPDATE, 6/16, 10:42 a.m.: I had posted links to an older version of this demo. I just updated the links to direct you to the new ones. They're largely the same file but this one does seem to work faster and better.)

My USA Today piece on the Fontainebleau's $15 million deal to put Apple iMacs in every room appeared on Friday on the cover of the Destinations section. You can read that here.

But here's a fun bonus: There's a Flash demonstration of what "iFB," as they're calling it, does that I'm able to share exclusively with you folks. Mac users can click here to download it and PC users can click here. They're ZIP files that open up as applications, but I promise you there is no spam in there.

And if you don't want to download anything, here are a few screen shots. Click on any of these images to make them bigger and more readable.

This is a close-up of the personalized greeting...


Here's the main screen:


And another screen with your local weather, etc.:


And, finally, here's a little sneak peek of the restaurant line-up for the Miami property, which reopens after a $500 million renovation this fall. Some of the same restaurateurs are coming to the $3 billion Vegas property as well as more.


One of the coolest parts of the FB-Apple thing that is new from my USAT piece is the idea of a touch-screen wayfinder board in the lobby of a resort that gives you personalized directions. Methinks the days of a deliberately confusing resort layout that forces guests to wander in circles in the casino -- Binion's Horseshoe comes to mind -- are over.