SUN: Racing's media makeover paying off

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

Hotels almost always lose money in the first quarter. Bellagio put Steve Wynn out of business for a couple of years and it had nothing to do with gaming losses and that opened during a pretty robust economy. Just imagine if it had been saddled with an extra 4000 condos to sell and it had to succeed in today's market.

Considering everything, City Center has done fine and it will be a great success. You think Baldwin a fool? Lanni? Murren? Kirkorian?

Vegas is shifting its focus once again as forward thinking people realize that gaming isnt going to keep the town afloat alone forever. The old economy is dead. What will Vegas be fifty years from now? What is city center a big step toward?

Vegas's competition as a gaming center is too great. Asian gamblers will play in Macao (hence the goldrush at the start of the last decade over there) before crossing the Pacific. East coast gamblers can go to Atlantis, Borgata, Mohegan Sun or a million other places that will be sprouting up. Charlestown even has table games on the horizon.

Vegas is shifting toward being a convention town. The days of castles, volcanoes and the french riviera are numbered and they will be replaced by green friendly, sterile black buildings with efficient meeting space in tandem with condensed versions of all we love about Las Vegas. There will still be gambling and nightlife but it will be a piece of the pie, not the whole thing.

Vegas has been a convention town for years. However did you not see the numbers showing that group visits were and continue to be down?

Are those guys smart? Sure they are but the reality of the situation is that the numbers that make the thing work are now not even close to realistic and they thought they had an ironclad partner who turned out to be less than that. I am not a Wall Street analyst nor do i claim to have any expertise in the area. But I can read and outside of MGM employees statements, I havent read anything positive about this project and a whole lot negative. When there are rumblings that MGM can go bellyup if this thing goes south, I think your optimism is ....overly optimistic?

By the way there is a 150,000sq foot casino as one of the major pieces of the city center puzzle so to say that it is non-gambling related is not exactly true.

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Vegas has been a convention town for years. However did you not see the numbers showing that group visits were and continue to be down?

Are those guys smart? Sure they are but the reality of the situation is that the numbers that make the thing work are now not even close to realistic and they thought they had an ironclad partner who turned out to be less than that. I am not a Wall Street analyst nor do i claim to have any expertise in the area. But I can read and outside of MGM employees statements, I havent read anything positive about this project and a whole lot negative. When there are rumblings that MGM can go bellyup if this thing goes south, I think your optimism is ....overly optimistic?

By the way there is a 150,000sq foot casino as one of the major pieces of the city center puzzle so to say that it is non-gambling related is not exactly true.

This statement here is completely clueless.

150k in gaming space out of 16,797,000 sq ft. LOL. Yeah Chuck, its a major piece of gaming. The ventian, by contrast, has 550k in gaming space out of 3.3 million total sq ft.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

This statement here is completely clueless.

150k in gaming space out of 16,797,000 sq ft. LOL. Yeah Chuck, its a major piece of gaming. The ventian, by contrast, has 550k in gaming space out of 3.3 million total sq ft.

The centerpiece hotel and casino, Aria, had an occupancy rate of 63% for the first three months of the year, 22 percentage points below the 85% rate for MGM Mirage's nine other Las Vegas Strip casinos during the first quarter

That is not my quote

nor is this

Mr. Murren conceived of the City Center project six years ago as a way to create a new urban center for Las Vegas. He shepherded it through to completion, even as its prospects grew dimmer. The project consists of six towers filled with luxury condos, a 150,000-square-foot casino and three hotels, in addition to a mall designed by Daniel Libeskind.

seems like someone thinks it is important

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

The centerpiece hotel and casino, Aria, had an occupancy rate of 63% for the first three months of the year, 22 percentage points below the 85% rate for MGM Mirage's nine other Las Vegas Strip casinos during the first quarter

That is not my quote

nor is this

Mr. Murren conceived of the City Center project six years ago as a way to create a new urban center for Las Vegas. He shepherded it through to completion, even as its prospects grew dimmer. The project consists of six towers filled with luxury condos, a 150,000-square-foot casino and three hotels, in addition to a mall designed by Daniel Libeskind.

seems like someone thinks it is important

Look at chuck trying dance. You said it was a "major piece to the puzzle". That is not what that journalist or anyone else said. 150k in gaming space is a pittance in relation to the size of the place. The idea behind the place is a step away from gaming. The mention of the gaming space is about as important as who designed the mall.

Are you really going to compare occupancy on a new hotel geared to a totally different market to an established hotel geared to an established market...during a recession?????

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

Look at chuck trying dance. You said it was a "major piece to the puzzle". That is not what that journalist or anyone else said. 150k in gaming space is a pittance in relation to the size of the place. The idea behind the place is a step away from gaming. The mention of the gaming space is about as important as who designed the mall.

Are you really going to compare occupancy on a new hotel geared to a totally different market to an established hotel geared to an established market...during a recession?????

Give me a break. There is no dance, there is fact. The fact is that the CENTERPIECE OF THE PROJECT is a hotel/casino. hink they are making a ton of money on 63% occupancy at $82 a night? Again i didnt call it the centerpiece and the journalist most likely got that from City center literature.

Regardless of how you want to spin it the place is going to tank. Whether it is because it was going to tsnk anyway or if the recession killed it or some combination of the two the fact is that there is nothing positive about this project. Even the shills from MGM speak guardedly about the thing.

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Give me a break. There is no dance, there is fact. The fact is that the CENTERPIECE OF THE PROJECT is a hotel/casino. hink they are making a ton of money on 63% occupancy at $82 a night? Again i didnt call it the centerpiece and the journalist most likely got that from City center literature.

Regardless of how you want to spin it the place is going to tank. Whether it is because it was going to tsnk anyway or if the recession killed it or some combination of the two the fact is that there is nothing positive about this project. Even the shills from MGM speak guardedly about the thing.

You called the 150k of gaming space " a major piece of the puzzle" Would you like me to link you to the post you said it in Fred Astaire? LOL

Why do you have such a strong opinion about a project you admittedly don't know a whole lot about? Its interesting to me. And they aren't charging 82 bucks a night. Thats a big part of the problem. The average nightly rate is about twice that and the weekend rate is over 3.5x that.

But what are they going after? Again, success or failure can't be judged in the first quarter.

As far as Dubai World being done, surely you don't think that Kirkorian et al is suddenly broke or creditless. Do you?

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

You called the 150k of gaming space " a major piece of the puzzle" Would you like me to link you to the post you said it in Fred Astaire? LOL

Why do you have such a strong opinion about a project you admittedly don't know a whole lot about? Its interesting to me. And they aren't charging 82 bucks a night. Thats a big part of the problem. The average nightly rate is about twice that and the weekend rate is over 3.5x that.

But what are they going after? Again, success or failure can't be judged in the first quarter.

As far as Dubai World being done, surely you don't think that Kirkorian et al is suddenly broke or creditless. Do you?

Grasping at strws? You are now analyzing my choice of words?

The fact that of the 109 condo units sold so far all have been 100% financed by City center themselves isnt troubling to you? The fact they were planning on $2.7 billion dollars in revenue of condo sales at the height of the market isnt troubling? The fact that when launched the MGM stock prices was $100 a share and it is now at $14 isnt troublesome? That this place was a stretch in the best of times and is assuredly facing something less than that isnt troubling?

[philcski]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

This statement here is completely clueless.

150k in gaming space out of 16,797,000 sq ft. LOL. Yeah Chuck, its a major piece of gaming. The ventian, by contrast, has 120k in gaming space out of 3.3 million total sq ft.

FTFY

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by philcski

FTFY

Thanks. The point still stands. No?