Making the Desert Bloom With Architecture

In a powerful reminder that big-name architects have become big business, the casino operator MGM Mirage has enlisted a celebrity roster - Rafael Viñoly, Lord Norman Foster, James KM Cheng, Cesar Pelli, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates - to design various parts of a $5 billion, 66-acre development in the heart of Las Vegas.

Called Project CityCenter, the complex of hotels, casinos, retail and residential space is to be built by November 2009 on a site between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio hotels on the city's famous strip.

MGM Mirage plans to announce the architectural team at a news conference today.

At 18 million square feet - about the same size as Rockefeller Center, SoHo and Times Square combined - the project is described by the company as the largest privately financed development in the country.

Taking Las Vegas's recent surge in residential development to a new level, the steel-and-glass project will inject a more urban sensibility into the strip's sprawling theme-park aesthetic.

It also reflects a growing consciousness among developers that many people want to live in high-profile buildings.

"Buyers love that," said Bobby Baldwin, chief executive officer of Mirage Resorts.

"They love the fact that they're living in a Rafael Viñoly building."

In New York, for example, the architects