As the 'Oceans Eleven'-inspired flash sequence on its website suggests, the team assembled by George Clooney for Las Ramblas is the hospitality industry's equivalent of an all star Hollywood cast. Sharing the billboard with Clooney is Rande Gerber (founder of celebrated hotel bar operators After Midnight and husband of Cindy Crawford). The credit list also includes two of Las Vegas' leading men in property development - Jorge Perez of Related and James M.Stuart of Centra Properties. Amongst the supporting cast are designers extraordinaire Philippe Starck and Keith Hobbs, and Miami based architects Arquitectonica.
A blockbusting $3 billion budget is being invested by Clooney and Gerber in a plan as audacious as any Ratpack movie heist. At over 25 acres this will be the largest residential project in Las Vegas, located on the burgeoning Harmon Avenue corridor near The Strip.
Las Ramblas will comprise eleven towers with a luxury hotel, luxury residences (both condo and condo-hotel), bungalows, spa and health club, nightlife, dining, shopping and a proposed upscale casino.
Construction commences in mid 2006. When completed, Las Ramblas will encompass more than 4,400 hotel, condo and condo-hotel units in 11 high-rise buildings comprising nearly 8 million square feet. It will include 300 hotel units; 2,764 condo units; 1,326 condo-hotel units; and 19 bungalows.
Phase one will be designed by the renowned architecture and interior design firm, Arquitectonica, and will include the first four towers (pictured), to be completed in early 2008. This includes the 300-room hotel with 370 additional condo-hotel units, a second adjacent tower of approximately 556 condo-hotel units, and two gateway residential condominium buildings at the entrance of the project, containing 285 and 344 units respectively.
Clooney and Gerber promise to be "extensively involved" in multiple aspects of Las Ramblas, though Gerber will presumably be the more hands-on of the two. His company After Midnight will be operating numerous restaurants, clubs and lounges there.
Clooney is at pains to point out that this will be no 'Planet Hollywood' (the restaurant chain backed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallon in the early Nineties): "We're clearly putting more than just our names to this project - we're investing financially and creatively to develop an idyllic environment that reflects our personal tastes and interests and where we can relax with our friends who also love this town. We are talking to our friend Brad Pitt about being involved in the design."
www.lasramblasvegas.com
