Time magazine: How CityCenter could turn around Vegas

(via Time magazine) · September 23, 2009 · 4:25 PM

Time magazine last month was tolling a death knell for Las Vegas but is now looking at the city's future, focusing on CityCenter and what MGM Mirage's infusion of thousands of jobs means for the struggling local economy.

In an article with the headline "How One Giant Casino Could Turn Around Vegas," the magazine looks at how the opening of the $8.5 billion complex on the Strip could be a catalyst to turn the economic tides.

The story comes not long after a cover story by Joel Stein in the Aug. 24 issue, "Less Vegas."

Discussion: 23 comments so far...

By 2zero

9/23/09 at 4:44 p.m.

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Political pressure? City Center will not save vegas, it is the death nail!
By ctwomp

9/23/09 at 4:59 p.m.

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so city center now employs 8000 construction workers whom will be laid off when the hotels open. city center will hire 12000 new employees to open the hotels. so basically this mammoth cluster f**k will bring 4000 new jobs to town. hardly enough to save Las Vegas..
By lakeside21

9/23/09 at 5:48 p.m.

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The article mentions that 25% of the CityCenter hires are current MGM employees. I'm curious how many of those people's old vacant positions will be refilled.
By ScottsdaleSun13

9/23/09 at 7:32 p.m.

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I think I've determined what America's main problem is: failure to accept reality. Let's call it blind optimism.

1. The stock market will enable me to bank on sustained returns and build a massive portfolio.
2. We're about to turn the corner in Aghanistan and have already done so in Iraq.
3. If I purchase a house with substandard credit or income, I won't have to worry for long as the housing market's limitless growth potential will protect me.
4. As the rate if layoff decreases from 500,000 workers to 270,000 workers being purged from payrolls each month, we can see the economy is recovering.
5. If I vote for Obama, I'll see the failed policies of Bush rolled back and real reform preset itself, particularly with regard to health care, obscene tax cuts and
defense spending.
6. CityCenter will save Vegas!
By DTJ

9/23/09 at 9:57 p.m.

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Why does anybody take Time Magazine seriously anyway? Their "journalism" is light-weight crap, and as this and the Joel Stein piece demonstrate, their only about selling facile stories, not explaining detailed, nuanced, complex issues.
Next please.
By vegasnative40

9/23/09 at 10:15 p.m.

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I wish you people would lay off the conservative talk radio for 9 hours a day. You are truly miserable people and it shows!
By stevem

9/23/09 at 10:42 p.m.

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you ever played that old computer game "lemonade stand"...basically, no matter how much lemonade you make, or how much advertising you do, if it's a cool, cloudy deal and nobody wants lemonade...you ain't selling lemonade that day.

nobody wants vegas right now, so just because it opens, it doesn't mean more people will be coming to town.
By denro

9/23/09 at 11:30 p.m.

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I can take a shot at the turnaround math:

If 25% of the jobs come from within to fill the 12,000 positions that's 3,000 people transferring, leaving 9,000 new positions to be filled, but 8,000 people will be laid off when the project completes, so that would be 1,000 new jobs, or it could be no new jobs, or even a possible net minus jobs if some transferees are not replaced at their current positions.

Please let me know if I am missing something.
By gold1020

9/23/09 at 11:46 p.m.

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In 2 months-CityCenter is gonna be gathering cobwebs.
By denro

9/24/09 at 12:32 a.m.

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Back in the day we were happy with the "Last Frontier Village" , bumper cars and western memorabilia.

Fifteen dollar rooms at the Desert Inn and cheap, quality buffet at the El Rancho.

City Center is a mega-eyesore.
By solar

9/24/09 at 6:42 a.m.

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Nobody wants Las Vegas, yet Bellagio continues to post occupancy rates above 95%.
By tdoma

9/24/09 at 7:29 p.m.

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OMG you guys are negative, do the city a favor and move out!
By tdoma

9/24/09 at 7:37 p.m.

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I'm with you vegasnative40,
These are a sad, miserable people
By iceguy

9/25/09 at 3:44 a.m.

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Only if Las Vegas remains a city of "yes you can do it" will it thrive and prosper. Get rid of the fun police and the "not allowed" atmosphere that is creeping in by the politically correct.
The entire country has gone to that thinking and people will flock to our Island of "you can do it here" as long as we resist. Mayor Goodman is the only hope to keep the hounds in check before they overrun Las Vegas with the Pool Police and all the other nonsense that is going on.
By jakeblues

9/25/09 at 6:42 a.m.

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I do not think that City Center will be the catalyst for a turn around in the Vegas economy.
What would be a smart move is to improve the infrastructure like roads and rail so we can attract a more diversified business base.Gambling on one industry to keep the economy going is foolishness.
Improving the quality of life would be a better thing to focus on.Poor schools,horrible healthcare,no real job security and massive corruption remain barriers to attracting the best and the brightest to live here.We are almost dead last in so many categories.
Some day Fidel will be gone and Cuba will reopen for business and when it does Vegas will almost certainly lose it's appeal.
City Center has so far been a deadly boondoggle.The traffic mess is causing a loss of revenue at other businesses,too.I blame the idiot commissioners who signed off on the project obviously to solicit donations.Term limits are a blessing.It is just too sad that it doesn't preclude them for running for other offices and screwing up at the state or federal levels.
By bam1969

9/25/09 at 9:18 a.m.

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hey, if Time says so, it has to be true...
By rumrunner

9/25/09 at 9:21 a.m.

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The only thing that will turn vegas around is the fricken bean counters that caused all this mess to look at what they did,and retry the mob approach?Let the people think there winning,and keep them happy dureing there stay and not fleece every cent from there pockets the min they step through your door.If these so called masters of the strip would read a few of there comment cards,things just might turn around a bit?So untill the bean counters pull there heads out of there rearends,nothing new will save this town!As i have said it a few times.......... LOST AND WASTED!!!
By ChickenLittle

9/25/09 at 9:22 a.m.

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One thing to take into account about the City Center lost jobs is the figure of transient construction that was brought in from out of state...

My cousin was approached for that project and he is steamfitters union from New York... So the real statistic is not how many Las Vegans are loosing a construction job over there... That is a stat I am quite sure will never be seen by anyone...

So to sum up it is time to stop being so negative, we all get it the apocalypse is coming... And by these doomsday premonitions when the Mayan Calendar runs out in 2012 we are f'd anyway, so cheer up and enjoy a little bit... LOL.. Turn off Fox News and go outside and enjoy some of this nice fall weather we are having...
By jim-nevada

9/25/09 at 11:28 a.m.

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I want to stay optimistic here, but we are placing way too much emphasis on CityCenter - and undefined "green jobs" for that matter - as the rescuers of our economy.

The TIME article is a fluff piece and most likely a generous favor to hotel execs and city reps trying to show that Las Vegas is still a viable travel destination.

Maybe sometime in 2010 - when unemployment has continued to rise - we will finally have a more serious discussion on job creation and diversifying the employment base. Let's get creative here folks - stop waiting for the local corporation to save the day!
By muddapucker

9/25/09 at 1:51 p.m.

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I would be willing to bet that the lost wages from Union Construction jobs will outweigh any jobs provided by City Center. In fact, as was previously mentioned, I am sure the majority of successful job applicants will not have their former jobs refilled. Its a job shell game.

I don't see it being a job bonanza and an economic catalyst.

The best thing you say about it is there will be less construction noise.

You can say what you want about negative thinking but the fact of the matter is that in the case of Las Vegas there is, indeed, a fine line between realism and cynicism.
By ChickenLittle

9/25/09 at 3:16 p.m.

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Gloomy Guses... I am coming from 20+ years in this valley... And I can tell you that we grew unrealistically between 1999-2006... Those 7 years saw more empty overpriced buildings go up than any other period in Vegas... And if you want proof of that just look at NASA's 25 year satellite picture history... It is amazing how little the growth was south of the airport up until 1999...

Up until even 2003 we were slated to get some tech in this town, but guess what professionals were driven away by over inflated cost of living... Why would a company want to come here when a 2000 square foot house is 350000+ and commercial real estate is over 3 dollars a square foot... if makes no fiscal sense... But that was allowed to happen...

I as a professional working 50 hours a week watched all my service based friend make triple what I was making with less hours...and guess what that is not happening now... do you really think making 6 figures a year to flip a bottle in the air is normal?

My point is this is a correction for all that access... And we will be better off for it... Commercial space is now pennies on the dollar and corporate tax incentives are great here... and the icing is cheap cost of living which used to be (prior to 99) a huge selling point here...

So I as a person who calls Vegas home look forward to how this town is going to change... It will be a great community in the years to come...
By JerryWayne

9/25/09 at 3:47 p.m.

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ChickenLittle - you're a genius!! The comments on the tech industry are right on point. What about the movie studio planned for the southwest? sometimes I wonder what hole the people that post here live in.

During the boom period, construction workers moved to Vegas because this is where the jobs were. CityCenter is one of the final pieces of the construction boom. Guess What?? Those construction workers are going to go where the jobs are.

I don't know what it's like for people that have a small cirle of friends, but I continually have friends from other states coming in for the weekend. Are they staying with me? Heck no! they can get a smoking deal down on the strip. What are they doing during the day? Shopping! Where are they going at night? Clubbing! My friends that are visiting don't have kids and spend $$$. Heck even my parents have been down here several times in the last six to eight months. All you doom-and-gloomers need to go find a job or something constructive to do with your time.
By VegasInsider

9/25/09 at 9:09 p.m.

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I wonder how much MGM paid Time magazine to run this article.

Boycott City Center!!!

Do it out of respect to all the dead workers they killed in meeting their tight schedules!!!