Vegas Hotel Minus The Casino

Celebrity chef Charlie Palmer is building his own Vegas hotel, without a casino. The 33 floor, 400 unit hotel-condo building will be ready in 2008 and will cost $400 million to build. There will be three signature restaurants including a sushi bar suspended over the lobby. So why does he think his project will succeed when projects by Ivana Trump and the Hard Rock were canceled? He says, “Well, we’re doing a hotel-condo, which is something there’s very little of in Las Vegas right now to sell. The buyers can put their unit in a pool for rental. As a hotel guest, you won’t know the difference between this and a totally transient hotel like the Four Seasons or whatever. So they’re getting a real, five-star operating experience and a small, boutique hotel concentrated on high-end personal service you can’t get at those huge resorts on the Strip.” (MSNBC)