Bobby Baldwin

While defending their financially troubled development as a forward-thinking enterprise yet to hit its stride, CityCenter's developers acknowledge a problem with the landmark, $8.5 billion project: Many pedestrians are simply passing it by.

Forget those small but well-stocked minibars and glittering views. Las Vegas hotel rooms may soon be known for their well-appointed kitchens - places where visitors can avoid the townÍs staggering array of high-priced restaurants and watering holes by eating meals prepared in their rooms and guzzling mass quantities of chilled, store-bought booze.

Aria at CityCenter to open high-limit poker room named for card playing superstar Phil Ivey. Wealthy card sharks have a new exclusive table on the Las Vegas Strip that honors one of the game's most famous players.

MGM Mirage posts 1st-quarter loss, hurt by write-down on CityCenter, lower revenue. MGM Mirage's CEO said Thursday that, despite operating losses and a write-down on its CityCenter joint venture, the casino operator has solid plans to attract more customers to struggling Las Vegas.

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Dubai World may be teetering on the brink but one of the firm's key investment projects will roar to life in Las Vegas this week as a glittering 8.5-billion-dollar development is unveiled.

Dubai World may be teetering on the brink but one of the firm's key investment projects will roar to life in Las Vegas this week as a glittering 8.5-billion-dollar development is unveiled.

Visitors to CityCenter, the Strips newest spectacle, will be driven to look up at the glistening glass and steel. It is an inexorable pull, to cock your head backward and take in the sweep of six high-rise towers including two that lean and that create an urban scene unlike any other.The man who conceived of this place, however, would like to draw your attention to a small park bench.It is found near the center of the 67-acre site, alongside Aria, the flagship high-rise filled with 4,004 guest rooms above a sprawling casino, convention center, the Strips newest showroom and, to greet visitors, a boisterous demonstration of water cannons.Tucked between the 61-story Aria and the fanciful, futuristic retail promenade known as Crystals, Murren will show you the park bench, under the shade of a Zen-like cluster of trees. This little pocket park, he says, may be the most precious real estate in all of City Center.Sitting here, you can contemplate Henry Moores Mother and Child, a massive

CityCenter on Las Vegas Strip cutting condo prices 30 percent when existing buyers close deals. Developers of the $8.5 billion CityCenter on the Las Vegas Strip plan a 30 percent price cut on condos there that people have already agreed to buy, just help close the deals during the recession.

In normal times, a casino company within months of opening a major resort would use every opportunity to tout its virtues.

Buyers of CityCenter condos, grumbling about the drop in real estate values and other concerns, say MGM Mirage officials who were previously reluctant to discuss the issues are now reaching out to them. Buyers say they hope the talks lead to price reductions on existing sales contracts, which is their primary goal.

When MGM Mirage and its partner Dubai World almost missed a payment on CityCenter in March, there was concern that the more than $8 billion project would come to a halt.

MGM Mirage?s cash payment keeps construction going, but can?t guarantee future stability. MGM Mirages $200 million injection in CityCenter Friday answered questions about the projects immediate fate.