The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Spidey star Tobey Maguire has now followed pal Leonardo DiCaprio in acquiring a cool Sin City crash pad. Both actors have purchased apartments in the new condominium called Panorama, one of many residential projects filling lots near the Strip. So, you ask, just what does Young Hollywood see in this particular apartment complex? To help answer this riddle we go inside to give you a closer look.
Desert Living
Can a vibrant and viable live/work community ever be created along the Las Vegas Strip? That's the hope of MGM Mirage and their hugely ambitious plan to populate Las Vegas's central core with new home owners. According to a recent report in the New York Times, the $3 billion plan would transform 66 acres into a city center with homes, shops, movie theaters and restaurants all within walking distance. The site is equal in size to Rockefeller Center, and will be, according to the Times, the largest privately financed development in the nation.
The image above was released by MGM Mirage as part of the announcement of their project, and while it's only a concept, it does seem to mark a break with the typically historicist theme park Vegas structures. The luminous quality of the buildings shown suggests glass, and the forms seem somewhat sleeker and more sculptural than what the Strip has known in the past. James Murren, MGM's President and CFO, is even quoted by the Times anticipating a Whole Foods in what he hopes will be a cosmopolitan retail mix. There is at least one reason for optimism: the MGM executive was an art history and urban planning major while an undergraduate at Trinity College.
In this space we plan to keep an eye on any interesting design that gets put on the drawing board in the City of Sin. Here are two views of one other Las Vegas project called Loft 5, though like most of those going up now, it's not located directly on the Strip.
