LAS VEGAS — As a 490-room tower opens at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino just east of the Las Vegas Strip this week, hotel operators citywide are struggling to fill existing rooms and staggering at the prospect of 10,000 more coming online this year and next.

More than 6,000 rooms are planned at the six-tower, $8.5 billion partnership between MGM Mirage and Dubai World known as CityCenter, which is to open in phases starting later this year. And the Cosmopolitan next door expects to add just fewer than 3,000 rooms in 2010.

Randy Fine, founder of Fine Point Group, a casino marketing and consulting firm, said the Hard Rock likely had no choice but to go forward with its expansion after funding it because it needs money to pay off its lenders.

The 10,000 hotel rooms coming soon don't include thousands more from projects that have been halted or canceled. The 4,000-room Fontainebleau on the north end of the Strip is fighting with lenders in federal bankruptcy court in Miami to get the last of its funding to open this year. Harrah's Entertainment has halted its 660-room Octavius tower at Caesars Palace until further notice.