Why Las Vegas’ CityCenter resort and gaming complex isn’t a laughing matter
Photo Credit: A view of Las Vegas' CityCenter complex at night. Flickr / James Marvin Phelps
Skift Take
CityCenter was one of the most grand developments since the building of the Strip itself over five decades ago. Although it has started to inch its way into profitability, it will always be connected to the U.S.'s 2008 real estate crash.
CityCenter never had it easy.
MGM Resorts International announced plans to build the $4 billion development in 2004 during the height of Las Vegas' boom. By the time the project wrapped up four years later, its construction budget had ballooned to almost $10 billion and the city was sinking into a historic recession that almost forced the project into bankruptcy.
Though MGM officials felt pressure to mothball the complex, they trudged ahead and opened CityCenter in 2009. In the years since, the complex has been called a failure, a Tower of Babel, a sign of Las Vegas' hubris and a symbol of what can go wrong.
But CityCenter appears to have turned a corner. It posted an all-time earnings record during the first quarter of this year and helped boost MGM into the black.
MGM reported its best results since the beginning of the downturn five years ago.
During the first quarter of 2013, CityCenter reported a cash flow of $93 million, three times the amount it pulled in the year
