Clooney’s Las Ramblas

The site is up for George Clooney’s upscale Vegas condo & casino project: LasRamblasLVegas.com

George Clooney and Rande Gerber, along with Related Las Vegas (affiliate of The Related Companies of New York and The Related Group of Florida) and Centra Properties have teamed together to build Las Ramblas – a $3 billion luxury condominium, resort and casino complex inspired by European lifestyle and sophistication. A collaboration of renowned architects and designers, Las Ramblas will encompass more than 25 acres with 11 towers offering luxury condominium and condominium-hotel residences, bungalows, a five star resort, spas, fine dining, nightclubs and lounges, upscale shopping and a proposed casino. Located on the burgeoning Harmon Corridor just east of the Las Vegas Strip, this urban enclave will frame an outdoor pedestrian promenade lined with European cafés, patisseries, shops and restaurants inspired by its namesake, Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain.

George Clooney is currently investing millions of dollars in a $3 billion hotel and condo complex in Las Vegas called Las Ramblas and has reportedly suggested enforcing a European-style dress code in the casino.

Sounds good to us. The Vegas skank factor is starting to get a tad dated.

Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman Gambling on the Pros

From the USA Today

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman says he’ll wager on anything and everything: football games, the passage of city ordinances, even a cockroach race. Now, Goodman is making the biggest bet of his career — that he can successfully lure a pro sports team such as Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins to Sin City.

If the Dallas Cowboys are “America’s team,” a Las Vegas franchise would be the “world’s team,” says Goodman, a former criminal defense attorney for mobsters such as Meyer Lansky. If Goodman were a betting man, and he is, he’s betting he’ll throw out the first pitch for a Las Vegas baseball team by 2008. The team should be called, what else, “The Oscars,” suggests Goodman.

“To be a great American city, you have to have sports,” says Goodman, who played himself as a mob lawyer in the movie Casino.

Can you say “Viva Las Vegas”? With a population approaching 2 million people, Las Vegas is one of America’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. The town already has boxing, pro wrestling, Ultimate Fighting, NASCAR, the Arena Football League’s Las Vegas Gladiators and the 51s, the Class AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now it wants one of the Big Four pro sports: MLB, the NBA, the NFL or the NHL.