Veer-ing toward completion

With completion of Harmon Hotels having vanished into the mists of Time, the opening of Veer Towers effectively represents the end of CityCenter‘s rollout. (If and when the Harmon opens as something other than an office tower — one mooted use — it will be a sotto voce coda to what was meant to have been a grand urban symphony.) Closing on 17% of your units doesn’t sound all that impressive, until you consider how much more sluggishly other condo towers have been selling.

Now-MGM Resorts International expects to close on two-thirds of Veer’s inventory. Perhaps more interesting is that, despite talk in the real estate community of the Strip being a magnet for overseas condo customers, 65% of those buying into Veer are from Nevada or California. Chalk it — the foreign phantom, that is — up as one more truckload of the B.S. that fueled the condo bubble. The place looks great but, given the history of other CityCenter components, the jury is still out on functionality.

If it seems as though both Penn National Gaming and SL Green designed their Aqueduct Race Track bids to fail, there’s at least one reason why they may felt brinkmanship was in order. Some of you have probably been following the emerging saga of the Shinnecock tribe. The band isn’t federally recognized just yet, but the momentum is in that direction and with recognition a casino will follow almost as surely as night succeeds day.

Since the Shinnecocks land sits smack-day in the middle of the Hamptons, this constitutes a mighty bargaining chip. Neighboring millionaires and billionaires don’t want to have rub linen-clad elbows with — horrors! — a tribal casino. (Riff raff, y’know.) To placate the sensibilities of the upper crest, Long Island movers and shakers are trying to broker a deal whereby the Shinnecocks set up their slots and tables somewhere closer to New York City … and Aqueduct. Only Genting Bhd was willing to risk Shinnecock competition without give-backs from New York State, which made it the winner (pending a finding of suitability).

Ex-cuse me? The castle casino is opening a new show this weekend, Free Beer. But you wouldn’t know it from the marquee, which continues to devote valuable space to Louie Anderson, even though the ample comedian is in the last two weeks of his Excalibur residency. (He moves down to food chain to Palace Station in September.) Evidently MGM was too busy changing its stationery to read “Resorts International” to give its newest show a plug. Free Beer, incidentally, is directed by Terrence R. Williams, whose splendid production of Ain’t Misbehavin‘ is playing out in the ‘burbs.