What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas when it comes to a weekend away with friends, but when it comes to redefining the Vegas skyline, what happens in Vegas definitely does not stay in Vegas. The newest addition to the Vegas landscape, City- Center, opened in December 2009 and is a world-class entertainment, leisure and living destination unlike any other. Located on 67 acres (27 hectares),the 18-million-square-foot (1,672,200-m2), $8.5 billion city-scale, mixed-use development went from concept to completion in just five years and is the largest single development in the world.
Situated between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo Resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, CityCenter is the equivalent of 12 midtown Manhattan blocks. The urban metropolis includes four hotels-the Vdara Hotel
& Spa, ARIA Resort & Casino, Mandarin Oriental and The Harmon-in addition to Crystals Retail and Entertainment district and the residential Veer Towers.
CityCenter is also the world’s largest sustainable project. Thus far, ARIA, Vdara, Crystals, Mandarin Oriental and Veer Towers have all received LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the highest LEED achievement for any hotel, retail district or residential development in Las Vegas. The Harmon, which is scheduled to open later this year, is also pursuing LEED certification.
Jim Murren, chairman and CEO of MGM MIRAGE, said prior to CityCenter’s opening that “CityCenter will be an international architectural achievement that integrates the talents of world renowned artists, architects and designers in one development; it will be a landmark of global taste and style.” He continued, saying, “CityCenter will be one of the great urban communities of this century, attracting visitors from around the world,as well as providing those who call The Strip home a sense of place and permanence.”
A joint venture between MGM MIRAGE and Infinity World Development Corp., a subsidiary of Dubai World, CityCenter is a design collaboration between MGM MIRAGE and eight internationally acclaimed architectural firms, including Gensler, San Francisco; Pelli Clarke Pelli, New Haven, Conn.; Helmut Jahn, Chicago; RV Architecture LLC, New York; Foster + Partners, London; Studio Daniel Libeskind, New York; Kohn Pederson Fox Associates, New York; and Rockwell Architecture, Planning & Design PC, New York. Gensler was selected by MGM MIRAGE to serve as the executive architect for the project, while Tishman Construction Corp., New York, was the executive construction manager, and Perini Building Co., Henderson, Nev., was the general contractor.
A New Vision
CityCenter was born from an idea the Murren had after attending a conference on mixed-use developments, according to J.F. Finn, Gensler principal and CityCenter project executive. Murren realized that Las Vegas was going through a transformation and was becoming a metropolitan urban area. Finn explained that Murren thought that as customers evolved there was a need to respond with a more urban and sustainable way of doing development. At that time, property values in Las Vegas were exploding, forcing developers to look at development in different light, resulting in a more vertical, denser development, like CityCenter.
To understand what it takes to do a vertical, dense, sustainable development, MGM MIRAGE put together a team that went around the world looking for different designers, architects and engineers that could become their partners in the project, Finn explained. “[Gensler was] interviewed by MGM MIRAGE on several occasions for various different roles. In the end, [MGM MIRAGE] determined that what they really needed was somebody with a tremendous amount of horsepower, with global reach, that understood the design industry and had a rapport with the other design architects, to help represent MGM MIRAGE and be their partner, essentially an extension of their staff.”
“This is the future of Las Vegas-CityCenter is in an entirely new category,” said Bobby Baldwin,president and CEO of CityCenter. “To achieve what we wanted, in the time span we wanted, we knew we’d have to bring on a single firm with unparalleled visionary talent that could undertake such an extraordinary effort. Gensler stepped up to that challenge and CityCenter is a testament to that.”
As the executive architect, Gensler worked with MGM MIRAGE to select the design architects and the architects of record that would work on the project. “It was a collaborative effort,” Finn said.”Some of the architects were our ideas and suggestions, and some were MGM MIRAGE’s that they had interviewed previously.”
“CityCenter is the best example anywhere of a collaborative design process,” said Art Gensler, founder and chairman of Gensler. “We had our hands in virtually every aspect of this project and interfaced with every member of this massive project team-from the developers, construction teams, engineers, designers, and of course MGM MIRAGE and its in-house design team. This was a colossal undertaking where the end result is a true testament to both the talent and the process.”
“Our role really was to make sure that everyone played well together and collaborated, but also to ensure that the owners’ objectives were infused into all of the decision making,” Finn said. “We helped lead a number of design charrettes, where everyone got together in a room-all of the design firms-and brainstormed. Our role was to make sure people were collaborating and were working together toward the same common objectives.”
“All of the architects we worked with collaborated very well together,” Finn continued. “They got along really well, they interacted, they threw their ideas out there and argued strongly for them. And in the end, they did what teams do. They collaborated and made compromises from time to time.”
Project Management
To complete CityCenter on schedule, Gensler collaborated closely with Tishman and Perini. The majority of 2005 was spent by Perini planning the project in detail, including budgeting, scheduling site logistics, procuring long-lead items, interviewing and hiring craftspeople, subcontractors and additional personnel. In April 2006, construction on CityCenter’s major facilities began and was completed three years and eight months later.
As the executive construction manager, Tishman provided a variety of services for CityCenter, including scheduling, budgeting and cost estimating, reviewing bids, resolving design and field conflicts, negotiating final contracts and more.
“A key part of our working relationship with MGM MIRAGE and Dubai World on the CityCenter project was our ability to comprehend the scope of the development. We understood their design and construction complexities, budgeting processes, quality expectations, and reporting methods,” said Daniel P. McQuade,president of Tishman Construction Corp. of Nevada.
In addition to being involved in the construction of all the major CityCenter buildings, Perini worked on the five-story central plant, fire station, five parking garages for more than 19,000 cars, Nevada power substation, site utilities, new roads and overpasses, and landscape installation. Meanwhile, Tishman also served as the general contractor for the interior fit-outs of the residences at Mandarin Oriental, Veer Towers and the Sky Suites at ARIA.
“MGM MIRAGE worked with brilliant and forward thinking architects, engineers, interior designers, and artists on CityCenter,” said Jim Scarpace, Tishman Construction Corp. executive vice president and corporate executive for CityCenter. “It was our job to execute MGM MIRAGE’s visions and make it a reality.”
Building a City Within a City
The construction of CityCenter is comparable to building more than 12 major structures all opening at the same time. A record 50 million man-hours were required to complete CityCenter on schedule. Perini employed 250 subcontracting firms, including 180 minority-owned firms; more than 10,000 craftspeople; and a professional staff of more than500 people; in addition to interfacing with more than 2,000 consultants and vendors. Tishman managed and coordinated work on the project with 150 professionals, including construction managers, architects, engineers, estimators, schedulers, cost control specialists, project control specialists, global procurement professionals, superintendents and LEED specialists.
To plan and build CityCenter, Perini’s approach was to divide and conquer. Along with MGM MIRAGE, Perini divided the project into three manageable blocks that each had its own executive team. Each project within each block also had its own project management team. The executive and management teams had to collaborate closely with one another to maintain a coordinated construction effort.
Completely landlocked, the CityCenter property is surrounded on all four sides by major roads, including Las Vegas Boulevard, structures and the in-progress Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino. The majority of construction was planned starting in the middle of the property and working outward. As construction progressed, the site became less accessible, and to maintain access for incoming materials and outgoing equipment, critical pathways were strategically placed and completed in the final stages of construction. Additionally, the site had only four primary access points that required intense orchestration among thousands of people, equipment and supplies. Because of limited access and a congested work site, off-site storage and prefabrication staging areas were secured before the start of construction.
Leading-edge Design
CityCenter is Las Vegas’ largest project to implement Building Information Modeling and three dimensional modeling for construction coordination. Perini utilized a variety of construction management software programs for the project, including Primavera PG Enterprise Project Portfolio Management software for scheduling and logistics and Prolog Construction Project Management software at City-Center. Along with its major subcontractors, Periniwas able to streamline daily construction logistics with the help of AutoCAD 2009, Revit 2009 and NavisWorks 2009.
AutoCAD 2-D software was utilized for ongoing daily logistics for the coordination of steel, concrete, crane layout, site plan layout, emergency access and an evacuation plan. AutoCAD 3-D models were used to draw structural elements that impacted the mechanical, electrical and pumping coordination,including the walls, concrete slabs, exteriors and structural steel.
Based on its compatibility with 3-D software used by subcontractors, NavisWorks 3-D was employed for mechanical, electrical and plumbing coordination. It allowed Perini and the MEP contractors the ability to navigate in real-time through detailed technical building models, while viewing the placement of complex MEP systems in a 3-D model allowed problems to be solved before construction.
Revit was used for 3-D modeling at CityCenter. Since multiple users shared Revit’s file database, enabling the ability to use interconnected plans, sections, elevations, legends and schedules, when changes were incorporated, other views were updated automatically.
“CityCenter is career defining; it’s the project of a lifetime,” said Dick Rizzo, vice chairman of Perini Building Co. “Construction contracts the magnitude of CityCenter are rare and in this economic climate, may not come to fruition for decades.”
The City of the Future
An urban project that was designed to last a century, not a decade, there isn’t anything in Vegas that even comes close to the scope and scale of CityCenter, Finn said.
Craig Shaw, president and CEO of Perini Building Co., summed it up nicely, saying: “Not only is CityCenter one of the most ambitious developments ever built, it is an industry leader in design complexity, environmental sustainability, construction diversity participation and manpower.”
“Individually, each component of CityCenter is striking and refined,” Baldwin said. “Together, they reflect an integrated design approach that promotes discovery, enhances operational efficiencies and customizes the look and feel of this new urban Las Vegas experience.”
