Mgm Grand Hotel Theme Park

Headline entertainment set to take Las Vegas stages this summer includes: Through June 6: Sh'Boom-Ja'Nour, Las Vegas Hilton. Through June 7: Siegfried & Roy, 7:30 and 11 p.m., Mirage. Today: Andrew Dice Clay, Bally's Las Vegas. Today-June 5: Doug Kershaw, Four Queens Hotel & Casino. Thursday-next Sun.: Ray Charles, Caesars Palace. June 7-20 and Aug. 9-31: David Copperfield, Caesars Palace. June 7-July 4: Kristine & the Sting, Las Vegas Hilton, (702) 732-5755.

Faced with the opening of huge competing casino-resorts, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas is planning a $250-million expansion that will boost the size of its popular shopping arcade and add a magic-themed entertainment complex. The Las Vegas landmark, which is owned by Los Angeles-based Caesars World, released details of its expansion a few weeks after Mirage Resorts and Circus Circus each opened large casino-hotels with several thousand rooms each.

ITT Corp. said it signed an agreement to buy Desert Inn Properties from an investment group led by financier Kirk Kerkorian for about $160 million. The move marks ITT's first foray into gaming. For almost a year and a half, ITT Sheraton, the holding company's lodging unit, has been seeking a major acquisition of a gaming property. "This agreement is the culmination of yearlong discussion, which began with personal conversations between Kirk Kerkorian and me," said ITT Chairman Rand V. Araskog.

In the second announcement involving a new Las Vegas resort in two days, ITT Corp. on Thursday revealed the details of its Desert Kingdom, a $750-million theme park, casino and hotel project the company unveiled in October. The resort, scheduled to open in early 1997, will be the first phase in a major tourist development centered around the Sheraton Desert Inn Resort and Casino and 34 acres of adjacent land, which ITT bought from billionaire Kirk Kerkorian last year.

Clifford S. Perlman, a widely known but controversial figure within the nation's gambling industry, was named Thursday to run the behemoth $700-million casino and amusement park that MGM Grand is planning to build in Las Vegas. Perlman, 63, has been named chairman and chief executive of a new subsidiary known as MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park. He will also join the board of MGM Grand.

For Mike Earnest, playtime never ends. He spends much of his workday in an imaginary land of gnomes, dragons and underground caverns. Earnest, 34, is president of Dreamation, a Huntington Beach company that builds animatronic figures and other artistic creations for theme parks, casinos and resort hotels. "We get to create something from scratch. It is always something different," he said.

The MGM Grand Hotel Casino & Theme Park has accelerated its target opening date and will open in Las Vegas Dec. 18--some 3 1/2 months earlier than originally scheduled. The MGM opening will follow Luxor Las Vegas (the 30-story pyramid owned by Circus Circus Enterprises) and Treasure Island (owned by Mirage Resorts Inc.), two mega-resorts set to open in October on the Las Vegas Strip.

ITT Corp. on Wednesday unveiled plans to build a $1-billion gambling resort in Las Vegas, where existing casinos are bracing for the opening of three other huge casinos in coming weeks. The New York-based conglomerate said it will take a decade to complete the entire 5,000-room resort and casino on land being purchased from billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, whose 5,009-room MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park on the Las Vegas Strip will open in December.