Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

How CityCenter’s room rates will compare with Strip rivals’

Online reservation sites are offering discounted room prices that reflect the effects of the recession on the three hotels opening for business in December at MGM Mirage’s CityCenter complex.

The weekend after its Dec. 16 opening, room rates at the 4,000-room Aria will run from $169 to $219 per night for a 520-square-foot room and from $475 to $1,150 for a suite.

Weekend rates at Vdara, the 1,500-unit condo-hotel opening Dec. 1, will start at $159 for a 582-square-foot suite, and go up to $359 for an 836-square-foot suite with panoramic views.

By comparison, rooms at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore will start at $199 a night — and about $100 more for the opening night of country singer Garth Brooks’ debut there Dec. 11. At the Venetian, rates for the weekend after Aria opens will range from $199 to $239, and from $199 to $369 at Palazzo.

Topping the market is CityCenter’s 392-room Mandarin Oriental hotel, the smallest luxury hotel with no casino on the Strip. Thanks to an extended grand opening discount of 50 percent, Mandarin will offer opening Dec. 4 weekend rates of $298 for rooms of about 500 square feet, up to $2,000 for suites with more amenities.

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While Penn National Gaming continues to negotiate a potential purchase of the bankrupt, unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas resort, some subcontractors still owed money are exploring another idea for how to recover more of their money: buying the resort themselves.

It’s an unusual development but wouldn’t be the first for the Fontainebleau, which has become a construction industry case study as the largest unfinished high rise in the country and a headache for any potential buyer given the more than $1 billion needed to finish the building.

The unique circumstances behind the Fontainebleau make such a bid possible, as the subcontractors, owed about $375 million, are arguing that their claim takes priority over bank lenders’ claims. The subcontractors might then be able to bid the value of their claim in exchange for canceling the debt and taking control of the property.

The value of their lien is higher than the “substantially less than $300 million” that Penn is expected to offer, though the company has yet to make a starting bid. Subcontractors were expected to receive cents on the dollar if Penn, which has been negotiating with the contracting firms, were to buy Fontainebleau.

Buying the property might give the subcontractors a better chance at recovering their money over the long haul, though the future is cloudy. The resort may take a year to complete, and an inexperienced buyer would need to hire a host of experts to run the project, including a general contractor, a casino management team and a hotel management company with a customer list and reservation system.

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CityCenter is creating a ripple effect — of the positive kind — for needy job seekers.

After weeding through about 160,000 candidates to hire 12,000 workers for CityCenter, managing partner MGM Mirage is starting another mega job search for thousands of jobs left open by MGM Mirage employees who left for CityCenter.

About one-third of CityCenter’s employees, or 4,000 people, were internal candidates from MGM Mirage, creating openings for other MGM Mirage workers or outsiders to move into.

Job seekers who previously filled out CityCenter applications online but did not get a CityCenter job can update their Web applications by indicating interest in other MGM-owned properties.

About 20,000 people who already had jobs at MGM Mirage hotels — people offered a head start in the application process — applied for CityCenter jobs. Many outside candidates without jobs were former managers at other casinos who took entry-level jobs.

With Nevada’s unemployment hitting a record high of 13.3 percent, the company can expect to pick and choose the best candidates.

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