Even more confusingly, Las Vegas Sands spokesman Ron Reese said the company was planning a “soft opening” of the Palazzo “sometime at the end of December,” but that “…we are focused on a grand opening celebration on January 18.”

Er, right. So presumably the Palazzo will be open for business fully from January 18th, but the foyer will be open on December 20th so the company can claim it met its 2007 opening deadline.

Whatever, the fact that they managed to get the Palazzo open in such a short time is impressive enough, as is the building itself. There will be a grand opening celebration on the nights of January 17th and 18th 2008 as well, which should be spectacular.

[Source: LVBusinessPress]

The Palazzo, one of the new Las Vegas hotels currently reaching skywards, has confirmed its set to open on December 20th 2007. Some people are surprised by this given its current state of construction (see pic above, taken on 7th July 2007 and courtesy of Mark Adams), but the Las Vegas Sands Corp., owners of the Palazzo, are confident they can make this date.

When it’s complete, the Palazzo, when combined with its sister hotel the Venetian, will be “the largest integrated destination resort in the world” with 7,128 hotel rooms and 2.3 million square feet of meeting space on the Las Vegas Strip.

It should also be a good little earner, given that the Venetian has just posted revenue of $235.5 million for the quarter for the Venetian.

[Source: Forbes, LasVegasTodayAndTomorrow]

As you can see from this shot, the Wynn already dominates the older Mirage, while the new Palazzo and Wynn Encore will be bigger still. Add Echelon Place and the 63-storey Fontainebleau to the mix, and the older hotels are in danger of disappearing beneath their shadows!

The irony is that The Mirage was one of the first mega-resorts to open way back in 1989, and made its own near-neighbours, such as the now-imploded Boardwalk, look puny in comparison. Now, it seems, The Mirage and hotels of its era are getting a taste of their medicine, as Vegas goes bigger still.

As you can see from the pic above, the new hotels around The Wynn are all around 640 foot tall, with the Encore at Wynn being the tallest of the lot at 653 feet. Both Echelon Place and the Fontainebleau should be taller still, while the Crown Las Vegas project that hasn’t begun construction yet, but is all set to go, will be a gigantic 1,888 foot monster – nearly twice the height of the Stratosphere.

Quite what this will do to the Vegas skyline is anyone’s guess. Tall towers give great views only as long there are no other tall towers between you and the view! With every new building going up fighting to be bigger than the last, each new hotel could drown out the view it’s trying so hard provide.

That said, these huge new behemoths will certainly provide a fascinating new skyline as you look north up the strip. If they’re successful, though, I can’t help but wonder just how long the now-tiny looking older players, such as The Mirage and Treasure Island, have left before their owners think that blowing them up and building even taller buildings in their place would be a much more profitable use of the land on which they sit!

[Source: VegasTodayAndTomorrow]

The main hotel is the large left building, while the building towards the right is a new condo that’s being built as part of the new complex. You can just about see the existing Venetian sandwiched between the two.

Although the new condo’s rooms should have glorious views of the strip (and which should remain glorious, given that the land either side is owned by Sands), it does look very prominent – I’m not sure how well it’ll fit in with the rest of the Palazzo/Venetian development. You can certainly tell it was designed after The Palazzo, as it almost looks like it’s just plonked there as an afterthought!

[Source: Skyscraperpage]

This photo set, and others in our new Changing Vegas gallery, shows just how quickly the landscape of Vegas changes. The photo on the left was taken in April 2006, and shows The Stardust in all its glory, standing proudly beneath a glorious blue sky. Fast forward a year, and all that’s left is a smouldering heap of rubble – even the sky’s turned grey! The Stardust is no more, but from its ashes will rise the huge new Echelon Place. Another Vegas icon bites the dust, only to be resurrected as another Vegas mega-resort.

More pictures of the changing face of Vegas after the jump.



Perhaps more startling still is this next set of photos, which shows what’s happening around the old Stardust.

The photo on the left was again taken in April 2006, when The Stardust was still very much alive (though not sure if the same could be said for Debbie Reynolds!). The Wynn stands proudly as a shining beacon of modernity, without any neighbours of note, while the world-famous iconic Stardust sign was proudly telling the world that Debbie Reynolds had not, in fact, left the building (though hopefully she did before they imploded it!).

Again, fast forward a year, and The Stardust’s famous sign is now just a battered shell of its former glory, while The Wynn finds itself with new neighbours hastily being constructed, in the form of The Encore at Wynn (in front of The Wynn) and The Palazzo (behind).

Such is the pace of construction around the north end of the Vegas strip, that I’ve no idea what to expect when I return next year. The Palazzo is meant to be finished at the end of 2007 (though some doubt it will make this deadline), while the Encore at Wynn is scheduled to open at the end of 2008.

Meanwhile, the 5,280 room Echelon Place, the new $4 billion mega resort that’s being built on the ashes of The Stardust, isn’t due to open until 2010, but you can bet that this time next year, work will be well underway.

Vegas seems to be a different town every time you go, which can make for an unnerving visit at times, but certainly makes your pics more interesting. Sometimes it’s almost as though you only need to set your camera looking at a building dor a day or two before someone comes along and demolishes it!

You can see more photos of The Stardust before and after its implosion in the Stardust/Echelon Place gallery, which shows the pics above in much bigger format.

But this year was different. One of the days we were too exhausted to go wandering to the bottom of the strip to the MGM and New York New York, and so ended up at Treasure Island (after a fortunately aborted attempt to get into Gilly’s!). We went to the Isla Bar, which was actually pretty chilled, with extremely pleasant waitresses, a nice atmosphere, and good tunes (although they do have to compete with the noise of the slots).

Tangerine at Treasure Island, Vegas

On the Saturday, we were determined to see the night life of Vegas, and so decided to go to Treasure Island’s Tangerine club (it was Jaime Evans’s birthday apparently, and Tangerine was helping her celebrate, and inviting everyone else to as well. Given that we share the same surname and she’s a PlayBoy model, I felt it rude to turn her down!!)

At first, we nearly didn’t bother, as the price of entry goes up from $20 to $30 for guys (although it stays at $20 throughout the week for girls). But, upon arriving at Treasure Island at 7:30pm, they were handing out free passes into Tangerine, so the cost of entry wasn’t an issue. Handy tip for you – if you’re going to a club on the strip, get there for 7:30pm – 8pm, and you should get a free pass.

Another handy tip – you’ll need your passport or driver’s licence to get in, as anyone under 40 needs photo-ID. Yes, this is mad – you drink alcohol and smoke fags in both the bars and the clubs, but only the clubs require you to show photo-ID. Presumably the dancing can corrupt young minds (or even old minds – me and my mate are 37, and even we were turned away from Coyote Ugly because we didn’t have our passports on us!!)

Anyway, back to Tangerine. The place faces the front of the strip, with a large indoor dancefloor upon entering the club, and a smaller bar area out the back that directly overlooks the pirate ships on the strip, the Wynn and the new Palazzo (see pic, above). The atmosphere is fantastic.

Not only is it warm outside (Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert, remember), but you’re surrounded by the pirate-themed trappings of Treasure Island, with a huge fake pirate ship in front of you (below), and the huge new Palazzo hotel that’s currently taking shape as a glorious backdrop, giving the impression that you’re surrounded by fabulous scenery (which you are!).

Slightly less fantastic is the choice of music. Outside they play deep house, techno, and electro, which provides a super-cool atmosphere, but no dance floor. Inside, where the dance floor is, they play shit cheesy hip hop, which has the locals whooping and hollering till they’re dry. This is tedious, clichéd, and as original as the music played at every average disco.

So it was a case of going outside to listen to the music, then back inside to dance to some pap until your ears and taste could take no more!

We got chatting to a few interesting girls (must say hi to Christa and her mum, Linda, who was nuts!), and experienced more of American culture (for want of a better word!) than we would have normally. Part of this cultural exchange was the way Americans dance on a dance floor.

The dance moves are as you’d expect (largely hip hop-based and devoid of any creativity – I’m such a dance snob!), but what’s not what you expect is the, er, ‘interaction’ between blokes and girls. A bloke will come up to a girl and start grinding into her ass. If she likes him, she lets him; if not, she waves her hand, and he disappears! All very polite – it’s as if they have rules that they follow! In the UK, nothing less than a sledgehammer will stop the committed grinder, let alone a simple flick of the wrist!!

Even more disarming was the way the girls come on to the blokes. I was dancing away merrily when suddenly a woman came up to me and started humping my leg like a frustrated dog, grinding into me with a manic grin on her face! This wasn’t a problem (nor necessarily unpleasant!), but neither was it expected!

Even more amusing, a giant woman (yes, a giant woman – they don’t things by halves in the States) picked my mate up from behind and squeezed the life out him. We both just grinned sheepishly (or painfully, in the case of my mate), and said “We’re English, you know,” hoping that would explain our complete bewilderment.

We finished the night at 3am, and staggered back to the pit we called home (and which other people call Circus Circus), with fantastic memories of a night like no other back in the UK.

If you’re in Vegas and want to check out the night life, then go to Tangerine in Treasure Island. The people are nuts, the atmosphere is glorious, and there’s nothing like it in the UK. Happy days!