[Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas by Deke Castleman, who spent the first four days after megaresort’s grand opening inspecting the place. Deke contends that the "Cosm" is a microcosm of today’s Las Vegas.]
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is open and it’s a stunner. Among a number of attractions, Cosm is a distinct departure from the cookie-cutter megaresorts to which we’ve grown accustomed over the past couple decades, since the Mirage launched the New Las Vegas.
Cosm takes such a different direction –- it’s as hip and innovative as CityCenter is melodramatic and caricaturish -- that it might be as significant as the Mirage was. The Cosm has been called "the next generation of Las Vegas hotel-casino" and it could very well be. Time will tell.
But one thing time has already told is that the Cosmopolitan represents the end of the boom that the Mirage began. No hotels are under construction. None have broken ground in the last two three years. The Fontainebleau is a hulk, a science experiment in how long the abandoned shell of a megaresort can withstand the Mojave elements; it may, for all we know, have to be imploded. Echelon Place, by comparison, could be dismantled, the whole steel-framing process just put into reverse.
I’m predicting that no major megaresort will be completed, or even started, in the next five years. The over-under is 60 months and I’m betting the over. Anthony Curtis, on the other hand, is taking the under; he likes the Fontainebleau’s chances, though requiring up to $2 billion in a tight market to complete, I don’t. We’re wagering a hamburger at Holstein’s (Cosmo’s gourmet-burger room, reveiwed in this month’s LVA).
Yes, the Cosmo marks the final salvo in the big bang 21-year boom. The blackjack boom. The most natural Vegas number. Fitting.
But the bust has officially begun. We’re now counting the years between booms. Last time, it took 16 years for the Mirage to be the first hotel-casino built since the original MGM Grand, now Bally’s, opened in 1973. Hell, I might even bet the over on that.
And yet, the party rages on. Fact is, Cosmo could very well bridge the gap. I was there when it opened and I was there for the next several days and I can tell you that this is one fabulous joint.
I wrote, yesterday, about the vertical orientation, which is plenty atypical. But the embodiment of this is also Cosm’s design centerpiece. The Chandelier Bar occupies tight tri-level space centered around a spiral staircase; you can also access its three floors (and bars) in an interior glass elevator. The whole thing is draped from ceiling almost to floor in strands of glass crystal, two million of them, we’re told. The idea is that you’re inside the chandelier and by God if that’s not what it’s like. You’re not only cocooned, curtained by, the crystals, but images are also projected onto the curtains (I like the smoke the best), so the "chandelier" almost feels like it’s swinging in the breeze. It took a good ten minutes to experience it all.
Natural light, anyone? Seen any lately in a single Las Vegas megaresort? (I haven’t. You have to go to Laughlin for light.) The front of the casino is enclosed by huge picture windows, all that separate the building from the Strip sidewalk. The gambling is so close, it reminded me of Slots A Fun. And the music from the Strip-side Bond Bar is piped outside, reminiscent of the Westward Ho. A proud casino heritage for sure.
At the same time, Cosmo is radically high tech and digital. The threshold of the Bond Bar is framed by LED displays that can not only be seen from the street, but provide Cosmo’s best backdrop for souvenir photos. And at the other end of the building is the hotel lobby, featuring 10 pillars covered with high-def video screens displaying works of digital art 24/7. It’s worth another five minutes just standing there, enveloped by it. And as mentioned yesterday, Cosm’s 65-foot-tall outdoor marquee also makes artistic statements, interspersing two-minute commissioned videos by artists (including Yoko Ono and T.J. Wilcox) with resort advertising.
Most of the non-commercial spaces are occupied by lounges, with sofas and easy chairs, game areas (billiards and foosball on the third, fourth, and seventeenth floors), and cozy nooks for relaxing, people watching, drinking –- generally, cool places for hanging out.
And everywhere you look, you see something intriguing. The artwork is sophisticated, though still accessible. A couple of high-heel shoes stand seven-feet tall in the convention hallway. "Art-o-Matic" vending machines dispense cigarette-sized boxes containing signed original art that sells for $5 each. The resort directories operate like an iTouch. Each parking space in the five-level underground garage has a bulb that shines red when the space is taken and green when it’s not (blue means handicapped). Hundreds of antique sewing machines line the window display of AllSaints, the British clothing store. Jules Verne-type machines face off outside the buffet; see if you can figure out that they’re both cameras. Old-fashioned neon shines outside the adjacent Mexican and Chinese eateries. A cool mural of an eye graces the ceiling of the Queue Bar, an elegant take on casino surveillance. Foosball tables!
And they actually hid a pizza place. It has no sign, no name, and no menu. You kind of have to stumble into it, like you’ve discovered an urban gem -- the perfect microcosm for the Vegas microcosm that’s the Cosm. As such, I won’t tell you where it is, but I’ll give you a hint: Sergio Franchi, Connie Francis, the Conti Family, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Phyllis McGuire, Dean Martin, and, of course, Frank Sinatra. The pizza, by the way, is fantastic, too.
And there’s another secret about the Cosmopolitan. This one is known only to people who own timeshares at the Jockey Club, and only a few of them have found it so far. But since I own a fractional share of the nearly 40-year old Jockey Club, I’ve been waiting for the Cosmo to open for long years of negotiation, groundbreaking, construction, mandatory valet parking, noise and dust, and an ugly gray Cosm wall 15 feet from all the south-facing windows forever, which is reminiscent of something out of The Truman Show.
Having to put up with all that, I walked into the new joint with a little chip on my shoulder: This by God better be worth the pain, baby. And not until I solved the final mystery -- the secret passageway from the parking garage to the casino to the Jockey Club -- did I believe it was. Like the pizza place, I won’t tell you where it is, but you can find it if you try.
And so, the Cosmopolitan is icing on my personal cake as well. Not only does it feel like the first place where I could really relax since the Desert Inn closed years ago, but I sleep right next door to boot: It’s two minutes from any restaurant at Cosm to the toilet in my timeshare (not that there’ll be a direct connection). All on the 49-yard line of the Las Vegas Strip.
Tune in tomorrow when I conclude QoD’s coverage of the Cosm with descriptions of the rooms (and condo situation), restaurants, and retail.
