Vegas Development Comes Up Short

A Las Vegas hotel-condo project's height is nearly cut in half--not due to budget cuts, but faulty rebar installation. Experts are reportedly unable to recall "such a drastic midconstruction downscaling."

1 minute read

February 12, 2009, 12:00 PM PST

By Judy Chang

"'This is not the way we had expected things to play out,' said an MGM Mirage spokesman, Gordon Absher. 'But we want to build safe buildings whose structural integrity everyone has confidence in.'

County inspectors discovered the defect - improper installation of critical steel reinforcements known as rebar - after 15 stories of the building, the Harmon, had been erected.

The Harmon is one of several structures that make up CityCenter, an $8.6 billion, 67-acre development at the heart of the Strip that includes two other hotel-condominiums, two residential towers, a 4,000-room hotel-casino and a 500,000-square-foot shopping center. Those involved in the effort promote it as the largest privately financed construction project in United States history. Besides Mr. Foster, other prestigious architects working on CityCenter buildings are Cesar Pelli, Daniel Libeskind and Helmut Jahn."

FULL STORY: Tower Rising in Las Vegas but Now, Not So High

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 in The New York Times

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