Monday, October 21, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

THE STRIP: Where the emperors Rome

Park Place hopes glossy Colosseum helps return Caesars Palace to dominance

With all the trappings of Imperial Rome, Park Place Entertainment executives hope completion this week of the $95 million Colosseum will herald the resurrection of Caesars Palace as a key competitor on the Strip.

"(The Colosseum) will reintroduce (Caesars) to the market with a host of new experiences and a number of other dining and entertainment attractions," Caesars Palace Executive Vice President Joe Jimenez said recently.

With the Colosseum, Caesars hopes to attract Las Vegas visitors who are not staying at Park Place destinations and are not familiar with what they have to offer.

"We're going after the 'I'm important' crowd with the disposable income to want the Caesars experience. There's a huge customer base that belongs here," he said.

"(Caesars) previously has not had the entertainment or marquee restaurants that are so important now to complete the experience," Jiminez said.

Park Place Entertainment, the holding company for Caesars, he said, "has done a great job with the repositioning of this property, and we've teamed up with the greatest entertainer, the best restaurateurs and the best retail experience in the world. The whole envelope will be complete."

Park Place, which bought Caesars in late 1999, has been criticized for the disruption caused by building the Colosseum and other construction projects to reposition the hotel and casino.

"You have to go through some pains before you come out of the other side. You could only have such prospects for success from recreating a property like this with a brand name as strong as Caesars," Jiminez said.

At Perini Building Co., the general contractor for the project, Caesars project executive Mike Nunn said: "(Work is) more than 95 percent done right now and ready to turn it over to Caesars Palace."

Perini has scheduled the walk-through tests this week to get the temporary certificate of occupancy from Clark County before the end of October, at which point the venue will be turned over to Concerts West, the producer of the resort's new Celine Dion show.

The Colosseum was originally conceived 2 1/2 years ago by Rene Angelil, Celine Dion's husband, and officials of Park Place.

Park Place hired Montreal-based Sceno Plus to develop an architectural concept and theater design loosely inspired by Roman aesthetics with a contemporary look, Sceno Plus President Patrick Berge said.

"We specialize in (designing) theaters with artistic values in them," he said. "We're the only architects who design theaters around the entertainers who will appear in them."

Other Sceno Plus projects include the Charlie Chaplin concert hall in Vevey, Switzerland; the Cirque du Soleil theatre in Orlando, Fla.; the Centre Pierre-Peladeau in Montreal; the Playdium Entertainment Centre in Toronto; and the Bellagio Theatre in Las Vegas.

"This is a good example of a theater designed for a performer who knows just what she needs and wants. Designed otherwise, theaters leave both performers and political supporters (of entertainment projects) very unhappy," Berge said.

"Look at the 44-foot-high presidium arch. It makes you feel like you're on the stage. It's the largest presidium arch in the world," he said of the theater's dominant architectural feature.

"And compare this with the Bellagio. It seats only 1,800, but the furthest seats are 135 feet from the stage, 10 feet farther than the Colosseum," Berge said.

The 4,000-seat Colosseum theater, attached to Caesars Palace casino, is 120 feet high and 256 feet in diameter. It will feature a 22,450-square-foot stage that is 120 feet across.

The size of the stage necessitated the development of a microclimate air conditioning system to control ventilation and humidity at the front of the stage to accommodate the singer.

Perini is wrapping up work one month ahead of schedule and on budget.

It took 600,000 man hours to build and used 7,700 pieces of structural steel, 570 tons of rebar, 7,631 cubic yards of concrete and 142 miles of wiring. Now complete, it will be cooled with 800 tons of air-conditioning equipment.

The assisting architect for the project was Oklahoma City-based GSB. Other subcontractors included Hansen Mechanical Contractors, Bombard Electric Co., KHD&S Inc. for the drywall and framing and SME Contractors for the steel.

"The logistics of building a major project around a working casino 24-7 with guests was tight and particularly challenging," Perini's Nunn said.

Concerts West has signed a three-year renewable lease for the Coloseum where Celine Dion will appear 200 times a year in a megaproduction directed by Franco Dragone.

Park Place will in-fill the calendar with other performances and performers.

"The Colosseum will reopen Caesars as the premier entertainment resort in Las Vegas, as it had always been in the past. It laid dormant for a while, but what a way to come back," Jiminez said.