This is sooooooo kool! East of my hometown Indio CA is a proposed sphere-shaped structure hotel resort, a replica of the Moon itself, about to be voted on or approved by the city council of nearby Coachella.
http://www.kesq.com/news/multibillion-dollar-resort-could-touch-down-in-coachella/37972666
The Indio-Palm Springs area is known for tourism (peaking in the winter months) and events from the BNP Paribas tennis open down the street from where I live to the Coachella Music and Arts festival, simply known as "the Coachella", so a large 4-star resort complex comes in handy, esp. it's lunar design.
Looks cool, but the $4 billion price tag is a bit, um, extreme.
I keep my eyes and ears open to this developing news story. The hotel company behind the project attempted to bring it to Las Vegas, so it could be a casino (depends on Coachella legalizing any gambling), but there are two nearby Indian tribal casinos, one has a hotel resort complex and a golf course. Indio CA has an arts structure about 80 feet tall and 100 feet wide known as "Odulus Mondi" that looks like an "eye" is staring to space (from satellite photos).
Not to put a damper on this proposal (Oh, who am I kidding...I'm putting a damper on it!)...
This developer is apparently trying to find someone to foot the bill, matter of speaking. He originally proposed the idea back in 2002 when the economy was glowing hot, and tried not only to build in Vegas, but in the Caribbean and the Middle East. In fact, something like this would have been perfect for Vegas, and the general model is very much like a Bellagio-type layout. What's most interesting is that in all my years of following Vegas happenings, this never really was on the radar of people. There's some resorts, including the Echelon & Fountain Bleu that never came to fruition, but at least they started the building process - especially Fountain Bleu - before going bankrupt. I don't even know where this casino would have landed (pun).
What's interesting is that one of the partner execs states in another news article that this project will be within easy driving distance from Las Vegas. Except...not many people rent a car while in Vegas. Maybe they could get buses to take people there on day trips, but that's not going to do much in terms of hotel nights. (There's numerous tour companies that take people on a 10 hour round trip to the Grand Canyon...for a Day Trip) And this is going to have to offer something that one can't find in Vegas. Gambling & Shopping ain't going to cut it.
So, while this project looks glamorous, it appears the developer is just trying to find someone - anyone - to allow him to build this dream. No doubt he's having trouble financing the project, which probably accounts for them giving up on actual destination cities or places, and now trying to find places within a few hour range of other large cities to hope he can persuade lenders that people will travel to his resort while visiting other destinations.