What's New

Gee, what isn't new in Las Vegas? That they want to take your money and will do so by any means necessary. Cynical? Hardly. That is, after all, why this town was built, and don't, for a minute, think anything else.

Otherwise, everything is constantly new in Las Vegas. This town is afflicted with terminal restlessness and must keep finding new ways of attracting visitors who can then be relieved of their money. Heck, by the time we've finished writing this, everything we've written, everything in the entire town, will be outdated, changed, or somehow different.

Perhaps we exaggerate. But really, only a little. Hotels are routinely renovating, upgrading, redecorating their rooms, and changing their themes (because everyone knows that a Spanish theme will bring in more tourist dollars than a Mardi Gras theme -- that is, until they decide it's been long enough with the Spanish theme and then switch to an Asian one), and that's only if they aren't blowing up the hotel and starting over from scratch. New restaurants with celebrity chefs and big prices open, and longtime stalwarts with comfort food for the ages close. Shows that have been touted with enormous billboards and bigger budgets close in the blink of an eye. Please remember this and think kindly of us if anything in this guide is inaccurate. Because that's why.

So, as we write this, what's new? Or even, what's going to be new?

Planning your Trip -- The iconic sign outside of the city reading WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS is a favorite photo op for many. (And no wonder -- it fits in the frame a lot better than those gargantuan hotels.) Unfortunately, snapping a shot has meant risking life and limb as the sign is right on the highway. To help prevent unfortunate starts (or conclusions) to a nice vacation, a parking lot is being constructed in the median just south of the sign. It should be open by mid-2008.

Long the last best hope for smokers, by the time you read this, Vegas will be, if not smoke free, certainly less smoky. The new ban -- which faces any number of legal challenges -- forbids smoking in any place that serves food, such as a restaurant, supermarket, or bar with a pub menu. Stand-alone bars and casinos are exempt, which, in theory, means you can't smoke in a hotel lobby, but you can a few feet away in a casino. It's going to be complicated and take some time to sort out, but it's an interesting evolution for a town so dedicated to hedonistic pursuits.

Accomodations -- This being Vegas, "top this" is the mantra. At press time, The Venetian was about to unveil its latest addition, Palazzo, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S. (tel. 888/2-VENICE or 702/414-1000; www.venetian.com). Operating along the lines of Mandalay Bay's THEhotel, it is at once a separate entity from, but tied into, the original. It contains another 3,000 rooms and is approximately 53 stories tall. Look for new dining and entertainment options, plus shopping that includes Barneys of New York. Meanwhile, right next door, Wynn will be opening Encore, another billion-dollar-plus addition with 2,000 more suites, more casino, more restaurants, more everything. But that's not until 2008, at the earliest. Besides, it's going to be a whole two stories shorter than Palazzo. Bigger is, of course, better, and taller is better still -- so Donald Trump has decided he can't possibly be outdone in such matters, and therefore his Trump International, two towers of hotel rooms and condos, will be 60-something stories. The first should be opening in early 2008. The town giggles delightedly over all this display of architectural macho.

For that matter, right in front of Trump's property, The New Frontier will be torn down to make way for a project courtesy of the Elad Group. The new hotel will be called the Plaza, thus liberally borrowing the goodwill generated by fond memories of New York's much-loved Plaza Hotel (also owned by Elad). Whether the Vegas version will resemble its Manhattan sibling in any way remains to be seen. Elad intends to spend $4 billion to produce 3,000 rooms, plus 300 super-high-end luxury residences, a casino, theaters, and the rest.

Going for sprawl rather than tall -- though there is that, too -- the hefty MGM MIRAGE (which controls most of the properties on the Strip -- Harrah's controls nearly all the rest) started off the town's most ambitious project yet with a bang, with the destruction of the old Boardwalk Hotel. By 2009, it will be replaced by CityCenter. Get this: It will contain (if it all comes to fruition) not just a 4,000-room megaresort and casino and all that goes with it (shops, restaurants, clubs), but also two 400-room boutique hotels (one being a part of the ultraluxe Mandarin Oriental chain), plus a couple thousand condo units and even more shopping, clubs, and restaurants separate from those belonging to the hotel complex. There will be 7,000 rooms total, plus its own people-mover, which is just as well since CityCenter covers more than 60 acres. With a $7.4-billion price tag, it's the largest privately funded construction project in U.S. history.

Meanwhile, right next door is the nearly $2-billion Cosmopolitan, which will include a Hyatt-run hotel and a big casino when it is complete in 2009. Not quite CityCenter but right up there in sheer size and scope will be Echelon Place, the $4-billion-plus development that is replacing the Stardust on the north end of the Strip. When it opens in 2010, it will have more than 5,300 rooms in four distinct properties -- Echelon Resort (a mega-casino-style place) and three boutique hotels with high-cache names: Mondrian, Delano, and Shangri-La (a high-end Asian hotelier) -- plus the typical casino, meeting, shopping, restaurant, entertainment, and other facilities one would expect in a place that will cost this much money.

Other big projects on the decks include Fontainebleau, a $3-billion version of the famous Miami resort of the same name. Containing 4,000 rooms, theaters, restaurants, and the rest, it is being built on the site of the newer of the two El Ranchos (Vegas history -- it's complicated) right across from Circus Circus.

Meanwhile, the Tropicana is getting such a massive reconstruction that by the time the project is complete, little of the hotel as it was (and is, at this writing) will remain standing. Apart from the two hotel towers, the place is being gutted, with several new hotel towers and all kinds of bells and whistles adding up to 10,000 rooms by the time the project is complete in 2010. What's more, throughout this massive reconfiguration, the property is staying open the entire time.

As usual, rumors fly about the fate of other venerable properties. At press time, the Sahara got a new owner who intends to give the place a top-to-bottom redo. The subject of a current bidding war, the fate of the venerable and rather shabby Rivera hangs in the balance. And who knows what Harrah's has in mind for that swath of property that runs from Harrah's to Paris? Surely envy over CityCenter is going to produce something equally grand. For the time being, figure that the Imperial Palace's budget Strip rooms are in peril, as are those in the former Barbary Coast (currently carrying the moniker Bill's).

Dining -- The celebrity chefs continue to come to Vegas, making it one of the most exciting places to eat in the country. Legendary Guy Savoy, the famed Michelin three-starred chef, opened up in Caesars Palace, as did a replica of New York's venerable (and notoriously exclusive) Rao's. It's two different kinds of famous dining experiences, though the first will require taking out a small bank loan. Meanwhile, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon showed it deserved all the foodie fuss generated by its opening by winning the 2007 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. Not to be left out of the fun, New York's Mario Batali opened up B&B Ristorante in the new Palazzo, which is also home to a venture by David Burke.

About Casino Gambling -- There is a big change quietly happening all over town -- and actually, the key word here is "quiet." Like us, perhaps you thrill to that distinct sound of coins dropping -- clinkclinkclinkclinkclink -- as you cash out on your slot (or poker) machine. These days, that sound is just a programmed audio track because every casino has changed its machines over to a cashless system, wherein the payouts come in the form of printed slips you take to exchange at the cages. And slots and other machines won't even take coins; gone are the days when one could dump that pocket full of loose change in a slot as one passed by. Meanwhile, many casinos, especially the ones belonging to "resort hotels" are easing up on the noise factor; there is considerably less "bingbingdingdingdingdingding" going on in the casinos, which is fine in terms of noise pollution, but still. Gambling will never be the same again.

And more revolutions are on the way. By the time you read this, casinos may be handing out portable devices that will allow you take the gambling experience out of the casino and in to any other public area of the building like the pool, some restaurants, bars, lounges, and more. Boy, as if the city didn't already enable gambling problems. The exact details on how these things will work are still a bit of a mystery, but the state has approved the technology, so it's coming whether we like it or not.

Another big change hitting casino floors in the near future is the concept of server-based gaming. Currently, each slot machine has its own computer, but in the future they will be "shells" run by one server computer (hidden, we like to imagine, in a bunker somewhere in each casino guarded by dogs and guys with sub-machine guns). Fantasy aside, the end result for you will be the ability to "download" any video-based slot or video poker to any console, eliminating the need to hunt for your "favorite" machine. This is already being tested in certain markets around the country, so expect to see it in Vegas at some point.

Shopping -- With the evolution of the former Aladdin into Planet Hollywood now more or less complete, the non-Planet Hollywood affiliated owners of the attached shopping center are working on transforming it from the Middle Eastern-themed Dessert Passage into the Times Square/Glamorous Big City-themed Miracle Mile. Can't this city leave anything alone? Wait, don't answer that. Anyway, $90 million or so later, it looks an awful lot like a generic fancy shopping mall, albeit one with all kinds of whiz-bang electronics and lights. It's keenly disappointing. We are getting tired of big and bland, but the list of shops is enough to keep us spending our hard-earned jackpots there. Look for more high-end shopping experiences to come with the openings of Palazzo and Encore.

Las Vegas after Dark -- It's clear that everyone is having a heck of a time putting the "sin" back in Sin City. More fancy new strip joints are making the scene, while one of them, Seamless, at 4am morphs into one of the hottest after-hours clubs in town. Sin is in and sexy is more mainstream than ever. Thus, burlesque queen Dita von Teese did a short stint in MGM's high-art strip show Crazy Horse Paris, while Pamela Anderson guest starred in magician Hans Klok's show.

Cirque du Soleil, the ubiquitous company is following up its Beatles-salute LOVE with an Elvis-themed show due to arrive at CityCenter in 2009. Meanwhile, legit theater continues to falter. A fine production of the Broadway hit Hairspray opened and closed with bewildering speed. Even as we write this, despite the just-announced addition of Tony Danza reprising his Broadway turn as Max Bialystock, The Producers is also teetering and may well be gone by 2008. But all is not Cirque. Spamalot got off to a good start, and Phantom continues to bring in its phans, while Palazzo is hosting the homage to the origins of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Jersey Boys, starting in early 2008.

Some things do come to natural ends, and so by the time you read this, Céline Dion will have ended her epic run at Caesars. But all is not lost: One good diva deserves another, and so the indomitable Bette Midler will be doing an annual lengthy residency. She's a broad and a half, and her show ought to set the town on its ear. Speaking of divas, Toni Braxton is in the middle of a popular run at the Flamingo.

Rumors -- Vegas just loves gossiping about big plans and changes. None of the following is confirmable -- we can't even get most hotels to confirm their rates -- and much of it may have changed by the time you read this. But, this gives you an idea of the dreams this city dreams.

At press time, the most delicious rumor was that a percentage of the top bid for the Rivera was put in by the company who partly controls the licensing for the Elvis Presley estate. Since an Elvis-themed hotel has long been a source of speculation for the town, this move is deeply intriguing. By the time you read this, this tidbit will either be confirmed or thoroughly debunked, but we include it because it shows the kind of wild talk that goes on behind the scenes of this town. There has also been a great deal of talk that Cher will be doing her own stint in Caesars, in between Bette and Elton John's dates. More idle chit-chat observes that MGM MIRAGE bought all the empty land across the street from Sahara and north of Circus Circus. We can't wait to see what epic construction will go on there; whatever it is will certainly affect Circus Circus. In theory, this won't commence until later in this decade, but at the rate this town moves, who knows?