LAS VEGAS, Nevada - Already brimming with success with the Barbary Coast, Suncoast and Orleans hotels, the Coast Casino chain is preparing to take on a whole new challenge with the upcoming South Coast Hotel and Casino, due to open in early 2006.

The location of the new hotel is a brilliant, ahead-of-the-curve choice. It's being built right alongside Interstate 15 on Las Vegas Boulevard, about six miles south of Mandalay Bay. While other properties have been built in the center of established neighborhoods, the South Coast is going up in a booming new area, where there are almost more bulldozers and cranes than actual residences or businesses. But that's changing fast. As the land closer to the Strip gets more and more expensive, development is moving south. Within a couple of years there won't be a square inch of dirt in this neighborhood to stand on.

It will also be the first major hotel-casino drivers coming in from Los Angeles will see after their sometimes epic journeys from the City of Angels. The drop-in traffic could be great (if they can figure out a more convenient freeway off-ramp scheme).

The first phase of the hotel is costing the company at least $500 million, and it has already announced an accelerated schedule for building the second phase, even before the place opens to the public. The whole thing is being done in a Southern California style, gold and white on the outside with warm earth tones inside.

That first phase will feature 660 rooms in a 25-story tower. Each will be larger than your typical hotel room and will include all of the latest high-tech gadgetry, such as flat-panel televisions and high-speed Internet service.

An 80,000-square-foot casino will have more than 2,200 slot and video poker machines (all coinless), 52 table games, a 300-seat race and sports book, a 600-seat bingo parlor, a poker room, keno and more, all hooked into Coast's popular players' club so you can earn points here and redeem them at one of the sister properties.

There will be at least eight food outlets, including a steakhouse, an Italian restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, a 24-hour cafe, an oyster bar, an ice cream parlor, a coffee house and a 625-seat buffet.

An entertainment venue will feature flexible seating, allowing for up to 500 people to see a headliner show or a similar amount to boogie the night away when they turn it into a club late.

Other diversions include a 16-screen movie theater, a 64-lane state-of-the-art bowling center, a Kid's Tyme child care facility, a video arcade, a heavily landscaped pool area with sand volleyball courts and a fitness center.

One truly unique feature will be the Equestrian Center, billed as being the finest indoor horse facility in the country. It will have a 4,400-seat arena overlooking a 250-foot-by-125-foot event floor, big enough to host pretty much any equestrian event.

Animals will be housed in the 1,200 air-conditioned stalls or in one of the outdoor pens large enough to accommodate 2,000 head of cattle. They'll warm up in a climate-controlled arena of their own before coming onto the main stage, and there will be an onsite veterinarian clinic and feed store to keep them healthy and well fed.

Future phases will add as many as 1,400 additional rooms, more casino space and more restaurant and entertainment venues.

It's too early to talk officially about prices, but I expect a hotel of this caliber will probably not be exactly cheap, although certainly less expensive than the Strip hotels up the street. If you were to hold me down and force me to make a prediction, I'd figure weekday rates will run around $100 a night and weekends will probably start around $150 and go up from there.

The first phase is currently scheduled to open in early 2006.