Clooney and Gerber get jiggy with Related and Centra
August 29th, 2005
In yet another earth-shattering (read with sarcasm, please) announcement, Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney (didn’t this guy used to be on The Facts of Life?), Cindy Crawford’s hubbie, Rande Gerber, and a couple of companies about which no one really cares until their bathtub starts leaking are planning to break ground in 2006 on — shock and awe — a $3 billion hi-rise, mixed-use, condo/hotel development called Las Ramblas.
Nestled conveniently between the Hard Rock Hotel’s planned condo expansion and the recently-announced W Hotels project at Koval Lane and Harmon Avenue, Las Ramblas will replace low-income apartments just west of the Hard Rock with 25 acres of luxury hotel rooms, residences, bungalows, spas, nightclubs, dining, bla, bla, bla.
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So the big boys will build million-dollar residences where their ultra-cool Hollywood friends can live while they hang out in Vegas, while affordable — and yes, crack-infested sh*tholes — are torn down, displacing hundreds of lower-income-type folk, forcing them into a market where even cost-efficient apartments outside of the Swenson/Twain area are hard to find.
It’s exciting that our city will look like … um, a city … in about five or six years. Tall buildings will block out the accursed sun. I’ll run into Brad Pitt at 7-11, and we’ll trade hair styling tips. I won’t have to look at empty lots or worn-down buildings anymore.
But no one can afford anything. Except for Mssrs. Pitt and Clooney, of course.
At what point are these builders and developers going to find themselves unable to sell a 900 square-foot condo for $500,000? That saturation point is coming, and it may come before any of these proposed projects even break ground.
(Via Awesome City)