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I am happy to report that the Fontainebleau has just about been topped off.  They are putting the circular thing (sorry for the technical jargon) on top, and it’s just a matter of weeks before the primary tower is finished.

First of all, we have to get past the name.  It is an unfortunate one. “ Fontainebleau” is just not something most people are going to say or spell on a regular basis.  It’s far too long, pretentious, and unnecessary.  Of course, nobody here refers to the place by that name. It’s already spawned a dozen nicknames locally, but as long as it starts with “F” and contains the string “Blu”, you won’t have to worry about confusing anyone here.  We’ll know what you are talking about.

Along with the City Center, the F’in Blue is the other part of the dynamic duo that is slated to bring Las Vegas back to its former glory.

I’ve had the good fortune (I suppose) of watching these places rise from outright nothingness,  and blossom into the structures you see today.

Although City Center is the larger of the two projects, the argument could be made (and is made by myself) that the F’in Blue actually packs much more of a visible impact.  Despite its size, when I am a few miles off of The Strip in either direction, City Center doesn’t really look like much of anything but a silvery conglomerate of office buildings.

The F’in Blue, however … sticks out like a huge, blue, middle finger that seems to say “That’s right, enough of this pansy 300 foot high crap.  This ain’t Kansas, mofo.  We’re ushering in a new era, you better recognize fool!”  As a single tower, the thing is just massive.  It’s the architectural equivalent of my johnson.   Almost.  They would need to add another 20 floors or so to get the full impact, but it’s close.

Despite its impending opening, the Fblue often gets lost in the “Vegas 3.0” discussion as everyone focuses their attention on the larger, and theoretically more important City Center project.  Lest the MGM-centricity get out of hand, it may be time to throw some attention toward this property … especially as it nears completion.

This property will be the second most important indicator of the health of Las Vegas within the next year.  The project is budgeted at about $3 Billion and will sport nearly 4,000 rooms.   Not counting City Center (yet), this will make the Fblue the 8th largest single hotel structure in the world by room count, just after the Bellagio and just ahead of Circus Circus.  It will be the 6th largest in Las Vegas.

At 68 stories and 730 feet tall, it eclipses any other building in Las Vegas, except for The Stratosphere.

One of the major negatives to its size is that the Fblue has almost completely erased The Stratosphere’s Strip view, but such is the price of progress.

The fact is that the Fontainebleau will be one of the most dominant structures on our skyline for a long time.  The property sits on the 25 acres that used to house both the El Rancho and the Algiers hotels.  It will have a 100,000 square foot casino, a 3,000 seat show venue, and will have a large variety of restaurants, nightclubs, and retail stores.  Basically, a more concentrated and vertical City Center.

While I am a vocal critic of the new wave of “office building” designs,  The Fblue is not hideous or as boring as it could be.  It’s kind of interesting and unique, but I still miss themes.  It sucks to be me, because shiny glass will dominate Vegas 3.0.    Even the supposed-artistic Hard Rock has adopted dual generic “glass box” additions to its classic curved main hotel.  Las Vegas architects have just given up themes, and are throwing glass panels on steel skeletons and calling it a property.

When I imagine Las Vegas 50 years from now, I’m envisioning something akin to the skyline of Chicago, Seattle, or Miami.

I guess progress marches on, and as long as the gambling and entertainment are acceptable, most likely nobody will care what the exteriors look like.  When I am inside of a casino, the external appearance of the place is of no consequence to me.  For instance, when I am in the Luxor poker room, the hotel may as well be shaped like a gigantic elephant.  I wouldn’t know the difference.  I’d rather play $5 3:2 single deck in a building shaped like a gigantic butthole than $100 6:5 shoe in a building with “stunning design elements” … so let’s hope the emphasis will be put on those things.

The Fblue is going to have computers in every room (20” iMacs), but those computers are going to be crippled so that you can only view select content or interact with Fblue services (not unlike the TV/remote checkout thing), which seems like a waste, but at least the infrastructure will be in place to open up real web surfing should they choose to do so in the future.

They are also being a bit over-pretentious by referring to their rooms as “guest flats” instead of “hotel rooms”.   I’m not one of those obsessive “proud to be an American” robots, but I do chuckle when people try too hard to use Euro-speak to impress moneyed douchenozzles.

We don’t call them “flats” in the US.  Everyone knows this.  If you are going to build your property in the States, then use our frigging terminology.  Nobody who’s opinion means anything is impressed when you adopt sayings from other countries.  I still want to slap Americans when I apologize to them or excuse myself, and they say “no worries”.

Yes, there are “worries”.  “Worries” about what happened to the contents of your scrotum you freaking posers.

Using Aussie lingo doesn’t make you sound hip, it makes you sound effeminate (no offense to Aussies).  Here we say “no problem” or “that’s okay” … these terms have served us well for decades.  If they were good enough for the 3 generations before you, they’re good enough for you.

When you book a room at the F’in Blue, you’re going to get a “guest flat” with an iMac in a building with a faux-French name.  Apparently they want heterosexuals to be as uncomfortable as possible in the new building.  Metrosexual posebags probably have more money anyway, so perhaps there is a method to the madness.

But I digress.

The North Strip desperately needs a shot in the arm, and at the moment, all of our chips are riding on this dominant building with a fruity name.   Echelon was going to be a huge piece of that puzzle, but now the Fblue carries the complete and full burden.

The last decade has seen everything North of Desert Inn Road toil away in obscurity, and we desperately need to re-join the North and South ends of The Strip back into a single entity.

Las Vegas does not want this place to succeed, we need this place to succeed.  Since City Center will be surrounded by a dozen perfectly operational properties, the Fblue may theoretically be even more important, because pretty much everything along a 1 mile stretch of Las Vegas Blvd. is counting on it.

As goes the F’in Blue … goes half of the Vegas Strip.

I’m excited about the place from a slightly more personal perspective as well.  I will be able to walk to it quite easily.  It’s shadow looms over my home as it is, and it has already become an integral part of my everyday view.   It’s already part off my personal skyline.  It will be another “backyard” casino, for lack of a better term, and if it’s good, I will probably be a regular.

Whether or not that will be the case, I will know soon enough.  It is slated to open in October of  2009, beating the City Center by two months.  It will also represent the official release of Vegas 3.0.

Let’s hope it works out better than that whole Windows Vista debacle.

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