On June 23, five steelworkers were injured when a 6-ft-dia., 70-ft-long rebar cage collapsed at the $2.4-billion Terminal 3 project at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Around 7 a.m., Tuesday, workers were attaching interior wire supports for the number 11-sized rebar cage lying on the ground lengthwise when it collapsed, trapping them inside. An unidentified worker used a forklift to elevate the weight off of the men until the Clark County Fire Dept. arrived. It took 30 minutes to extract the men by cutting the rebar cage, which was to serve as a structural component of a subterranean roadway
Another lavish multibillion-dollar Las Vegas Strip resort project has suffered a recession-related setback: On June 9, the $3.1-billion Fontainebleau Las Vegas, which is about 70% complete, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Construction of the 63-story hotel-casino-retail complex is now halted. Photo: Luetta Callaway/ENR Mega-project’s craft workforce dropped from 3,300 to 250 in recent months. Scheduled to open in October, the project is being built by Fontainebleau Resorts LLC, an investment group led by Miami-based developer Jeffery Soffer, who also owns the famed Morris Lapidus Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach. It so far has invested over $2 billion in the
Billions of dollars in fast-track federal construction stimulus spending is expected to boost cases of fraud and ratchet up government scrutiny, say industry executives. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s $787-billion spending total will likely lure many out-of-work firms into the federal contracting arena, boosting competition and fraud potential. “There is a lot of public pressure to step up enforcement of taxpayer money,” said Mark A. Aiello, a partner with Foley Lardner LLP, Detroit, at the Construction Financial Management Association’s annual conference, held last month in Las Vegas. Subcontractors and third-tier suppliers also are subject to federal sanctions for front-loaded
Sempra Generation believes in solar power’s bright future: The dust had barely settled at the company’s five-month-old 10-MW photovoltaic power generation plant near Boulder City, Nev., when it announced an expansion to quintuple capacity. The company claims it will create North America’s largest thin-film photovoltaic installation. Photo: First Solar Solar plant is next to Sempra’s 480-MW gas-turbine plant. The unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy “won’t start construction until we have a [power sales] contract in hand,” says a Sempra spokesman. “We hope to start construction later this year.” Potential buyers could come from neighboring states, all of which have
Stop mixing messages. That is what a team of safety researchers urged Perini Building Co. to do during worker orientations last fall following an assessment of the CityCenter project and another Perini project nearby. The mixed-message advice was one of the most interesting aspects of the assessment. Although Perini seemed on the surface to have the best safety communication practices, the assessment team claimed that the message was compromised. Photo: Tony Illia Bilingual instruction at CityCenter’s safety orientation lasted only 15 minutes. Related Links: Las Vegas CityCenter Project: Inside a Safety Turnaround Perini’s direct messages seemed to reflect an enlightened
My first workday at CityCenter—the Las Vegas Strip’s $8.6-billion mixed-use development, the country’s largest privately financed project—started last fall at the pitch- black hour of 6:30 a.m. I was nervous about my decision to shadow new construction hires during their safety training. Six workers had died on the project since 2007, sparking pickets and pressure that led to mandatory safety training. In the back of my mind was the fact that my brother-in-law, Darin, had suffered a near-fatal construction accident about a year earlier at another project and had returned to work at CityCenter. Now, months after my first day
CityCenter, the still-under-construction megaresort on the Las Vegas Strip, faces mounting challenges in reaching completion. The project, touted as the nation’s largest privately funded development, has tried unsuccessfully for months to obtain a $1.2-billion loan to finance the final leg of construction. Now its partners are fighting in court. The $9.2-billion CityCenter, which includes 19 million sq ft of hotels, homes and entertainment space, broke ground three years ago. On March 23, project partner Dubai World, a conglomerate owned by the Dubai government, sued developer MGM Mirage in Delaware Chancery Court. The timing couldn’t be worse: MGM Mirage is cash-strapped
Will the deepening recession and skittish lending environment find their next victim in CityCenter? The Las Vegas development faces mounting challenges in reaching completion. The project, touted as the nation's largest privately funded development, has been trying unsuccessfully for months to secure a $1.2-billion loan needed to finance the final leg of construction. Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) have reportedly made calls to banks on the project's behalf. The $9.2-billion resort complex was scheduled to open in December. On Mar. 23, however, developer MGM Mirage was slapped with a lawsuit by project partner Dubai
The U.S. Energy Dept. is headed back to the drawing board for a national nuclear-waste depository. President Barack Obama, making good on a campaign pledge, is seeking an alternate dump site to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. “I have consistently said that I am opposed to Yucca Mountain,” Obama told a Las Vegas crowd last January. “That will not change.” Photo: The U.S. DOE The budget at Yucca was cut $100 million for the rest of 2009. The U.S. Energy Dept. has spent over $10 billion since 1983 performing geological tests and studies at Yucca Mountain
Las Vegas is delaying a planned $890 million convention center upgrade amid falling visitor numbers and reduced gaming receipts. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority projects a 21.8% drop in room tax revenue for fiscal 2009; the agency responded this month by postponing construction plans until mid-2010. It will cost the LVCVA up to $5 million annually to service the project's existing debt. About $140 million has been committed to the project thus far, of which 68.5% is being financed. Construction was scheduled to finish in 2011. In February 2006, MWH Global Inc., Broomfield, Colo., with HTNB, Kansas City,
