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Steve Wynn has once again dazzled the Strip with the recent opening of Wynn Las Vegas.
After Steve Wynn completed the Mirage in 1989, he was credited with setting off a frenzy of casino building that continued for more than a decade.
Now it's possible that with the opening of Wynn Las Vegas, the first mega-resort on the strip in five years, Wynn's Midas touch could usher in a new phase of resort construction.
However, at the start of the project, it appeared after Sept. 11 that the financing for Wynn Design & Development's new Las Vegas flagship wasn't going to materialize.
"There were huge challenges in financing the project," said Todd Nisbet, executive vice president and project director of Wynn Design & Development. "At that time we were a new company with no operating history and no revenue. We were just some plans and an idea for a building and an operational team that people had to believe in."
DeRuyter Butler AIA, President of Butler|Ashworth Architects, Ltd., a regular collaborator with Wynn, was chosen to design the project.
"There are certain quality and owner criteria that are unique to this company," Butler said. "Once you have complete control over the design process, you have the ability to react very quickly to market condition changes, owner ideas and customer sentiment."
After several heavily -themed resorts, Wynn opted for a more subtle design on the new $2.7 billion project. "We thought that theming was sort of passé," Butler said. "We wanted to come up with simply an elegant and beautiful structure that didn't have to be a copycat of some other time or place."
Nisbet said the idea behind Wynn Las Vegas "was to create our own brand, our own image and our own style that becomes synonymous with Wynn."
Wynn and Butler have worked together on The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio and they try to improve upon each past project. For example, at the very successful Bellagio, "Some of the spaces were just huge in scale, and we have discovered that most customers like intimate places," Butler said. "We've also reduced travel distances between destinations. At the Bellagio you might need to walk 360 ft. from the elevators to your room - that's 20 percent greater than a football field. In the Wynn Las Vegas, by redeveloping the approach to the tower, the distance is less than half."
The challenge was to reduce the scale of a 5.4- million-sq.-ft. resort with a 49-story tower and a 140-ft.-high mountain down to a visual experience more intimately felt by the visitor. "The 'theme' of the hotel, in a word, would be intimacy," Butler said. "We've gone out of our way to create smaller chunks of space. We've used radial circulation patterns and controlled perspectives. You have to experience the building incrementally."
This includes avoiding long, straight aisles and corridors and large vantage points. The designers took the approach that people like to discover and explore their surroundings.
Even the resort's front door off the strip is obscured by the mountain, enticing visitors to see what lies behind the lush landscape and 100-ft. high waterfalls.
"Constructing the mountain was, from a technical standpoint, our greatest challenge," Nisbet said. "It was a mechanically stabilized earth structure, which had never been done in Las Vegas before. And then integrating the theatrical show elements within that structure and tying it all together on a very aggressive timeline was a Herculean task."
The mountain is studded with 1,500 trees, some as tall as 50 ft., and features a signature light and robotics show incorporated into the water features.
The outdoor spaces also include a par 70 golf course, which the contractor, Wadsworth Golf Construction, moved 800,000 cu. yds of earth to build. Wynn surrounded the golf course with 18 luxury fairway villas, but when demand outstripped supply the designers built a total of 36.
Wynn once again chose Marnell Corrao as the general contractor, who built the past three Wynn casinos in Las Vegas, with Wynn's company handling most of the construction management duties.
The most eye-catching feature of the project is the post-tensioned concrete tower, with a bronze-colored curtain wall brought in from Canada. White pin-striping between floors adds contrast and texture with dramatic nighttime up-lighting.
The two-level underground parking structure underneath the casino is poured-in-place concrete, topped with more concrete to form the casino and ballroom's slab. Because the low-rise casino and ballroom have clear spans of up to 210 ft., structural steel was used in place of concrete.
The mechanical system features a central plant with hot and cold water loops that circulate throughout the entire facility. Hansen Mechanical Contractors and Southland Industries of Las Vegas performed the mechanical contracting.
"All of the mechanical systems are designed so that the loop can be extended," said Butler, referring to future expansion options such as the proposed Encore project, a 20-acre development with an all-suite hotel tower, casino and various other amenities.
Two public connections were also built into the Wynn design for future expansions, which seem likely given the 150 acres of available prime real estate on the site, centered between the Las Vegas Convention Center and Sands Expo.
Another infrastructure unseen by the average Wynn guest is the security system, designed and installed by North American Video, M. Malia & Associates, Inc. and Fisk Technologies of Las Vegas. The Wynn project entails unique security challenges above and beyond the average gaming facility, including protection of Wynn's art collection and the Ferrari-Maserati dealership on site.
"The integrated security system installed at the Wynn Las Vegas is believed to be the largest fully digital video surveillance and security system ever implemented and the first 100 percent digitally recorded system approved by the Las Vegas Gaming Control Board," said Cynthia Freschi, president of North American Video. The system utilizes over 2,000 cameras that can all be recording digitally at the same time, with expansion capabilities to over 4,000 cameras.
Many Las Vegas resorts utilize innovative design elements to draw in customers, and the Wynn Las Vegas is no exception. The lake in front of the mountain contains an elaborate light and mechanical show. The two-story lounge, Parasol Up and Parasol Down, features dozens of lighted fabric-draped parasols dangling from the ceiling. The colorful umbrellas, designed and installed by Themeing Solutions, Inc. of Las Vegas, move and spin slowly.
Another unique space is the Le Rêve Showroom, which houses a water-themed show with just over 2,000 seats surrounding a 1.1 million- gallon circular tank of water with various portals and lifts where the actors perform acrobatic feats in, above and around the water.
As the resort enters its third month of operation, Wynn is gearing up for his next venture, the Wynn Macao in China, as well as planning for the inevitable expansions on the Las Vegas property.
"We are proud of the fact that this project was completed in 30 months, that it opened successfully and was done in a very safe manner," Nisbet said. "These are types of projects that you've got to have people that are truly passionate for something like this - it's more than a job. If it's just about the paycheck, you will fail."
Key Players
Owner:
Wynn Resorts Ltd. Architect: Butler|Ashworth Architects, Ltd. LLC
General Contractor:
Marnell Corrao Associates Inc.
Structural Engineer:
Martin& Peltyn, Inc.; Lochsa Engineering
Civil Engineer:
C & B Nevada, Inc.
Mechanical Engineer:
JBA Consulting Engineers
Electrical Contractor:
Bombard Electric Co. Inc.
Mechanical Contractors:
Hansen Mechanical Contractors
Steel Contractors:
Southland Industries
Steel Engineers:
Century Steel, Inc.;SME Industries
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