MGM’s inspiring, new vision

I’m digging the architecture but what’s with the softcore-porn music?

MGM Resorts International has released a new tranche of details on The Park, its mega-project (and substitute for extending CityCenter) that seems to progress in almost imperceptible steps. While CEO Jim Murren sometimes seems to be overthinking the reimagination of the Strip, he’s definitely moving with the times — and the economy — when he says, “We’re not putting in one new slot machine or one new table game.”

Favored shortcut for local drivers Rue de Monte Carlo will be torn up and relaid as a winding road, part of the go-slower mentality (not just physically but mentally, spiritually) that Murren is promoting with The Park. Cobblestone paths with be laid from New York-New York and Monte Carlo, leading pedestrians toward the AEG joint-venture arena that is the culminating point of The Park.

Up the Strip, The Linq is showing that you can get pedestrians to change their Strip-bound habits if you have the right product (just as Aria and The Aladdin showed how to discourage them). The Park will endeavor to do the same with a variety of mid-market eateries. Shake Shack is practically old news, but newer revelations include waffle house Bruxie, Sake Rok where the poor servers double “as entertainers, spontaneously breaking into dance and lip-sync serenades. The emcee – a six-foot man dressed in traditional Geisha attire – will keep the energy and the sake flowing late into the night as Sake Rok transitions into a chic bar and lounge.” Beer Garden will offer brews and bocce, and A Robert Mondavi Jr. Wine Experience tries to translate the Napa Valley ethos to Sin City. Last up (for now) is Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar, which promises 100 rums, Caribbean food and a Havana night-spot transformation in the later hours.

Bisecting this is the “pedestrian realm” (what City Hall calls a sidewalk ’round here) which paradoxically offers both giant water walls and sustainable botany that needs scant H2O — santolina, apache plum, mormon fir, red yucca, torch lily, desert bear grass, Mexican feather grass, fountain grass, orange sedge, blue agave, golf tooth aloe, horsetail. At least 75 trees that line the current, nondescript mall, will be saved and incorporated into its successor. “Mature trees, vegetation, water features and artful shade structures will create microclimates, affording comfortable environments for guests to enjoy,” MGM promises, with marble flooring providing an additional coolant.

Perhaps the most attention-getting aspect of today’s press deluge was the disclosure of tulip-shaped “shade structures.” Trying to go nature one better, these will not only block sunlight but be “a work of art in and of themselves [emitting] emit marvelous LED sequences from high above, captivating guests below.” At moments like this, it’s tempting to believe that Murren is trying too hard to bring cosmopolitan New Urbanism to Las Vegas — but then one feels gratitude that he’s making the effort. Somebody had to.

Give cleverness points to state Sen. Wally Horn (D). The Cedar Rapids solon tried to sneak a new casino for the folks back home into a bill downsizing greyhound racing in Iowa. Ruling it non-germane, Senate President Pam Jochum (D), sent Horn’s stealth casino packing.