Word: aria
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...course, he looks like he's enjoying this week as his playground of smart-suited corporate glass and steel glitters on the Las Vegas skyline. The mood this week in the city is upbeat as fireworks and a multitude of parties have marked the opening of Aria, CityCenter's central casino-hotel. (A retail mall, Crystals, opened early this month, along with a Mandarin Oriental hotel and a condo-hotel called Vdara. Three more towers are still in mid-construction...
...expecting a fast turnaround. Indeed, as Aria is opening, the venerable Binion's Gambling Hall downtown has shut down, and the Sahara just announced plans to temporarily close rooms in two of its three towers. One of the early selling points of CityCenter was that a slate of condos was planned to give the project some semblance of urbane flair. But the high-rise-condo market is in dire shape. Murren says MGM Mirage has 50% of its condos under contract, but it also recently announced a 30% price reduction to lure in new buyers as well a financing package...
Still, a cautious optimism has taken hold. In the airy, triumphant lobby of Aria, Murren notes, "Nothing gets close to the immense amount of gratitude and pride I have about this...
Parts of the project have had bad luck. The Harmon boutique hotel, a victim of construction defects, won't be finished until the end of 2010. But the opening of Aria is a significant achievement, signifying the end of an era in Vegas. The days of visionary auteurs bringing extravagant casino dreams to eager banks are over. Land is too expensive if you don't already own it. Banks are reticent to lend to developers who lack land equity and plenty of cold hard cash. MGM Mirage owns a larger parcel than CityCenter a few miles north...
...Rondo A La Turk" - which his sons kept a secret from their father until the show, according to his daughter Catherine. Herbie Hancock then took the podium, saying Brubeck was the reason he got into jazz. Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, a friend of Grace Bumbry, passionately belted out an aria from Carmen. And Jon Stewart - who shares New Jersey home-state ties with Springsteen - drew laughter with his dry humor before performances by Sting, Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Melissa Etheridge, among others. See who's who in Barack Obama's White House...