George Clooney’s Las Ramblas Project Ends Before It Starts

Last year, such high profile celebrities as George Clooney and Brad Pitt were named in a collaborative effort with Rande Gerber (the man behind several hot Vegas nightclubs, such as Cherry at Red Rock Casino Resort) in a condo-hotel complex known as Las Ramblas. Then towards the end of the year, rumblings came that the developer behind the project, Related Las Vegas, was experiencing financial difficulties with the construction costs.

The rumors became even more persistant in April when word came that the land earmarked for the complex was back on the sales block. The property sits along Harmon Avenue, between Paradise and Koval roads, just west of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, next to where the new W Hotel, Casino and Residences is being built. Plans for the Las Ramblas complex included a 4,400 room hotel and 11 high-rise condo towers, situated around a 40,000-square-foot casino.

But if you hope to stay in a Vegas hotel owned by Clooney or Pitt, you’ll have to wait a bit longer.  This week, Dan Klores Communications, the pr firm representing the project, reportedly confirmed to the San Francisco Chronicle that the entire 25-acre parcel of land has been sold to the Edge Group, the company behind the aforementioned W Hotel project for a little over $200 million — more than Related originally paid for the land in 2004.

The Las Vegas Business Press has a detailed article theorizing why the Las Ramblas project got so off course and why it had to end, but basically it just boils down to money…or lack thereof. 

Rumors are already circulating that Clooney and Gerbe might still collaborate on a Vegas hotel that will be designed by architecure fan Pitt, but if it does ever get off the ground, it’ll probably be something a lot smaller and more intimate than the $3 billion Las Ramblas project was to be.