Las Vegas Weekly

December 2, 2009 · 1:38 PM

CityCenter President and CEO Bobby Baldwin’s $8.5 billion bet

By Robin Leach

Bobby Baldwin, president and CEO of CityCenter, and his wife at the Vanity Fair party for the grand opening of Vdara Hotel & Spa at CityCenter on Dec. 1, 2009.

Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com

Longtime Las Vegas mogul Bobby Baldwin’s resume stretches far back from his current job as CityCenter president and CEO and includes being World Series of Poker champion in 1978 and president of The Golden Nugget in the 1980s, as well as helping to open The Mirage and Bellagio. Yesterday, Bobby premiered CityCenter.

Bobby chats with me about the $8.5 billion CityCenter and how this might be only the beginning for the Entertainment Capital of the World.

Robin Leach: So the first question is you’re a former poker player who was a bellboy downtown. What do you think of this moment when you juxtapose those two positions?

Bobby Baldwin: Well, I think my background as a poker player has helped me in business tremendously.

RL: Why?

BB: Because poker is not a game of cards. It’s a game of people. Just like business is just like life. So in order to develop or design or construct something as significant as CityCenter, you have to understand people because it takes thousands and thousands of people working in coordination with one another. If you don’t understand people, you are dead before you start.

RL: Ultimate game, ultimate pot for playing poker, this one?

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage

Eva Longoria Parker and Bobby Baldwin, president and CEO of CityCenter.

BB: I think your last pot is your last ultimate pot. This is just one project along the journey of MGM Mirage and my career.

RL: How can you top this?

BB: I don’t know if you have to top this. I don’t this is going to be the last project built in Las Vegas.

RL: But of this scope?

BB: I don’t know. When I came here in 1969, the largest hotel to ever be built was the 1,500-room International Hotel built by Kirk Kerkorian, and everybody thought he was crazy. And of course a 1,500-room hotel is relatively small today. There were people who developed Caesars Palace who thought Las Vegas could never support hotels over 1,000 rooms, and even Aria is 4,000 rooms. And there are 10 4,000-room hotels in Las Vegas. So the project is large because it has many components, but I think there is going to be plenty of developments in Las Vegas long term, not short term.

RL: Meaning that the Las Vegas we know from today will change from this point on?

BB: I suspect it will. I think Las Vegas evolved when Kerkorian built the International. Later he built the MGM, which is now Bally’s, and then the third time the MGM Grand. All of these developments were the largest developments in Las Vegas, and a matter of fact the world, and he actually did it a fourth time with CityCenter.

RL: And he still believes.

Photo: Darrin Bush/Las Vegas News Bureau

From left, Vdara General Manager Angela Lester, CityCenter President Bobby Baldwin, MGM Chairman and CEO Jim Murren, Infinity World Development President William Grounds and Aria President William McBeath cut the ribbon and officially open Vdara at CityCenter on Dec. 1, 2009.

BB: He still believes, and he has since the beginning. He has been the strongest supporter of CityCenter.

RL: Even with all the competition that exists around the world with other gaming entities, particularly here in America as we see them, does this remain the mecca? Is that the reason for its success because it’s better than all of them?

BB: I think Las Vegas is better than all other alternatives as it relates to gaming. It is steeped in history; it is built to withstand the test of time. It’s a long-term proposition Las Vegas as opposed to a short-term development in the neighborhood or any of the enclaves that promote gaming. In Las Vegas, gaming is only one small part of Las Vegas, where 40 years ago, 99 percent of Vegas had to do with gaming. Las Vegas is here to stay, and it doesn’t even mind the international competition. I mean that is what has provoked Las Vegas to do things such as CityCenter.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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