LAS VEGAS-Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino will celebrate its grand opening next month having completely made over and rebranded the exterior and interior public areas of the former Aladdin Resort & Casino and renovated about half of its 2,600 rooms with movie themes. Coming several months after the soft opening and two months later than planned, the star-studded celebration will also help market the adjacent, 475,000-sf Miracle Mile Shops retail destination, formerly Desert passage Shops, and Planet Hollywood Towers by Westgate, which will house 1,200 timeshare units in two 50-story towers.

The development group behind the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino includes Douglas P. Teitelbaum, Robert I. Earl and Theodore W. Darnall. Earl is one of the founders of Planet Hollywood. Teitelbaum is a managing principal of Bay Harbour Management LLC of New York, a company that is in the business of turning around distressed operations. Darnell is an officer with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which will run the hotel under the Sheraton flag. The group announced in September 2004 that it was acquiring the Aladdin property out of bankruptcy for $635 million with plans to transform it into Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

The acquisition included a four-acre site at the corner of Harmon Street and East Audrie Avenue upon which Orlando-based Westgate Resorts is developing the timeshare towers. Construction on the first tower is nearing the 20th floor and will keep moving forward thanks to a $400-million construction loan that Westgate closed on late last month. The lender is Textron Financial Corp., a subsidiary of publicly traded Textron Inc. Project completion is slated for late 2009.