HARMON HOTEL AT CITY CENTER LAS VEGAS
PM 3225
Bernardo Borja
Joshua Gutierrez
Wendy Thompson
ITT Technical Institute

Abstract

The City Center Las Vegas was a project initiated by MGM Resorts International that is an 18 million-square-foot development. Presently, this is the largest privately funded project in the nation and is a monumental achievement.
The construction started in June 2006, the project was completed over a five year period. During the construction phase, MGM International had a joint venture with Dubai World, investing a total of $4.65 billion. (Benston, 2009) The total cost went up to approximately $8.5 billion compared to the original cost estimate of $4 billion due to rising construction costs and numerous design changes. (Gonchar, 2010) This extra costs went over the budget and were not anticipated causing significant delays for the construction completion.
The intent of their design is a mixed-use urban complex to accommodate residents and guests of their needs for daily living. The project consists of multiple buildings with hotels, boutiques, residential condominiums and casinos. The CityCenter tram connects with 2 major hotels and casinos on the Las Vegas Strip and travels directly to Crystal’s retail and entertainment district. Parking garage and Fire Station #32 designs were well thought out considering space density, traffic flow and emergency response vehicle access. Parking consists of 6,900 car garage and additional major support structures which accommodates the CityCenter’s own Clark County Fire Station. Both of which are very hidden from the public’s view. (Wikipedia, 2011)
This design has added to the Las Vegas to a modern city look. The architects also considered using green technologies from water recycling to an on-site central energy plant making a sustainable city center. (Gardner, 2011) The city center buildings received LEED certifications in November 2009.

Six spectacular buildings were constructed for a variety of reasons. The Aria Resort and Casino has 61 floors, 4,004 hotel rooms. The Aria Resort & Casino is CityCenter’s central feature with a 150,000 sq ft casino. The Crystals has 3 floors, a 500,000 sq ft retail and entertainment district. The Vdara Hotel and Spa is a hotel-condo tower with 57 floors, 1,495 hotel rooms. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel has 56 floors, 392 hotel rooms, 225 condos. The Veer Towers are twin 37 story condominium towers that holds 674 condos. The twin towers’ unique architectural design is they are leaning 4.6 degrees from the center. With the exception of Harmon Hotel, all these towers have earned Gold LEED certifications. The Harmon Hotel has 27 floors, 400 hotel rooms and is a non-gaming boutique hotel. No official date of opening will be set for there are construction defects which we will focus and further go into detail a bit later. (Wikipedia, 2011)
Harmon Hotel at City Center Las Vegas The Harmon building, one of the hotels built at City Center and having passed prior inspections is now being delayed because of structural integrity issues. The once on schedule multibillion dollar project has hit a huge pothole that could spell trouble for the project owner MGM Mirage. (Bradford, 2011) Identifying the problem on this project was extremely difficult because of the inconsistent way the inspections were being done and the inconsistencies in the errors being made according to the investigation reports. Not only that, as the research continues, there are many different perspectives on who was to blame, who is going to fix the problem and how much money is going to be spent after all is said and done. Our research group believes the problems would have been found a lot quicker had they been the same on all floors. “A lot of times, a mistake that isn’t caught the first time is perpetuated. What is particularly puzzling is the fact that the mistakes in this case were not uniform. In some cases