The CityCenter in Las Vegas is well on its way to becoming a reality, but it was not a smooth ride on the way. The CityCenter is a casino, restaurant, and shops all combined in one location for gamblers to enjoy their trip to Las Vegas. This spectacle is a joint venture between the MGM Mirage and Dubai World. At a price tag of $8.5 billion in private investments, it is the most expensive private development in US history.

Within the past year Dubai World tried to sue MGM Mirage tin order to back out of the contract, but MGM decided it a worthwhile venture and scrambled to make the payment that Dubai World failed to make. Already in a financial crunch, MGM had to call on their private investors and banks to make the transaction possible.

The corporate headquarters for MGM stood in the Bellagio hotel and casino where they anxiously awaited word from the banks about the funding. Chief Financial Officer Dan D’Arrigo sat with Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Murren waiting for the word that the banks would make the payments. This decision left the jobs of 8,500 construction workers swinging in the balance. In fact the news helicopters were hovering over the building expecting a dramatic end where construction workers walked off the site. “It was pretty surreal,” D’Arrigo recalled.

There was a dramatic ending but it was a happy one. Bill Repko from a financial consulting firm called Evercore entered the room at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino with his blackberry in hand showing Murren and D’Arrigo the confirmation message. “It kind of lightened the mood a bit,” D’Arrigo said. “It could have been pretty ugly.”

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