Bombfactory: City Center Las Vegas

Just got back from Vegas on Saturday. I was at the Sands Expo and Convention Center (in the Venetian) with my brother for InterBike - the bicycle industry's annual trade show (thanks for the passes, Dad!). The turnout was a little smaller than last year - understandable considering the current economic situation, which hasn't spared the cycling industry any. Many of the larger bicycle manufacturers were showing not even close to full product lines in greatly scaled-back booth spaces, or were conspicuous by their absence from the show floor altogether.

For me the show is less about business - I'm in the motocross industry now (which is having its own set of problems!) - and more about catching up with friends I worked with during my many years with GT Bicycles. It's like an annual high school reunion for me where I never know who I might run into.

I always take my camera with me to Vegas - I finally got to the famous neon sign graveyard a few years ago and I'll share some photos in a future post - and before leaving town I had to stop and get some in-progress pictures of the incredible City Center going up right across Las Vegas Blvd. from the now completely lackluster Harley Davidson Cafe.

Billed as the largest and most expensive construction project currently underway in the world, the $11+ billion ultra-modern City Center, located on 67 acres at the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, looks to not only live up to, but completely blow away its massively hyped expectations.

Here's a shot of the main street entrance to City Center I shot last year:

:: as always, click on photos for a larger view ::

This year I took multiple series' of shots to stitch together in photoshop, using the new 'photomerge' feature to create some amazing panoramas. Here's the same location as the above photo, one year later:

And here's another panorama shot from across the street, showing the scope of the entire project:

More photos and info on the City Center project can be found at their official site here. If you're heading to Vegas, check it out. It's supposed to be open sometime this year.