CityCenter is an $8 billion, 70+ acre “city within a city” developed by MGM/Mirage on a prime stretch of the Las Vegas Strip. The financial stakes for the global casino development company and Las Vegas itself were huge: At the time, CityCenter was the largest private development in the United States.

To attract sufficient numbers of the right caliber of tenants, residents and guests, every one of CityCenter’s retail, residential and casino showpieces needed to appeal in its own nuanced way to a discerning, highly affluent audience.

In addition to framing the story and brand of CityCenter itself as a truly international and cosmopolitan destination, we developed the names and communications platforms for several key properties within it, including Vdara, The Crystals and Veer Towers. Then we played a key role in developing the marketing and content to bring the residential properties to market.

Within one year of the opening of CityCenter’s sales pavilion, roughly 50 percent of its nearly 2,650 high-end residential offerings had been claimed by buyers. During the same period, sales generated $1.63 billion, of almost 60 percent of CityCenter’s forecasted sell-out revenue of $2.9 billion.

From a naming and positioning standpoint no less than from the standpoint of urban design, CityCenter represents a fantastic balancing act: a set of names and stories that feel at ease together yet demand individual regard. Real cities achieve this through the operation of time. Here, we had to imagine our own.

Eric La Brecque

In association with Gensler