The Venetian's sister property will be city's largest resort, a feat of engineering
BY TONY ILLIA
Size matters on the Strip. Resort operators constantly one-up each other with the next megaresort. Las Vegas Sands, the company responsible for The Venetian, is now building the Palazzo. It will be the Strip's biggest hotel-casino when it premieres in December -- a title that it will hold for at least a short time.
The new $1.8 billion, 3,042-room hotel-casino is located at the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue, across from Wynn Las Vegas.
"The Palazzo won't have a recognizable theme like The Venetian, but instead will be an upscale design reminiscent of Bel Air, Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills," said Ron Reese, a Las Vegas Sands spokesman. "It will be taller than the Wynn Resort with a sleeker profile that will change the Las Vegas skyline."
TONY ILLIA | BUSINESS PRESS
Construction crews work inside the Palazzo, a 7.5 million-square-foot megaresort adjacent to the The Venetian.
TONY ILLIA | BUSINESS PRESS
The $1.8 billion, 3,042-room Palazzo, as large as four Empire State Buildings, is being packed onto an 8-acre tract of land with almost zero lot lines. The building was framed in steel, making it the largest steel construction project in North America.
The 7.5-million-square-foot behemoth undertaking is equivalent in size to 156 football fields, making the Palazzo more than three times larger than the Empire State Building. And yet it's packed into a tiny 8-acre site with near zero lot lines, creating some unique engineering challenges for construction manager Taylor International Corp. of Las Vegas.
"We had nearly no room for staging onsite," said Taylor's Jim Mason. "It meant careful coordination with all of material suppliers."
Las Vegas Sands, in order to maximize its Strip-front real estate, decided to dig down 60 feet. Contractors removed 1.2 million cubic yards of earth from the site to create a four-level, 4,000-space subterranean parking garage. It took 114,285 truck-trips in 16 months to remove all the dirt.
Another below-grade level for back-of-house services was also built. It entailed 600 truck-trips a day, running double shifts, six days a week. A 390-foot-long, 18-degree earthen service ramp at Sands Avenue was created just for truck traffic. Contractors also had to de-water the site by using 10 pumps with a combined 40,000-gallon-a-day capacity.
Designed by HKS Architects Inc. with Walter P. Moore as structural engineer, the Palazzo plan uses every square inch available. The 50-story high-rise is a steel-framed tower with a glass and EIFS skin. The building was constructed using massive I-beam structural members, bolted and welded together, with huge concrete filled plate box girders for lateral bracing.
"The Palazzo will use 70,000 tons of steel, making it the largest steel job in North America," said Mason. "Steel was lighter than concrete, and the soil conditions dictated that we use a lighter product."
It took three tower and five mobile cranes to erect all the steel needed to build the 645-foot, Y-shaped hotel tower, podium and garage. Schuff International, however, the project's steel supplier, had no room to breath.
The firm, as a result, stored and staged steel at a 23-acre railyard on Blue Diamond Road, located miles away from the job site. Schuff subsequently trucked in steel parts piece by piece until the building skeleton was complete.
"It has been a logistical nightmare," Mason said. "Everyone has to be dialed into the schedule."
It's no easy task. Palazzo will see 150 subcontractors and suppliers during the height of construction activity. But the project has still kept a miraculous pace.
The tower, for example, went-up at a rate of one-floor a week. The Palazzo has a 41-month construction schedule that has resulted in thousands of tradesmen onsite simultaneously.
"Since January, the project has cost $2 million a day to build," Mason said. "That's for workmen, materials, fabrication -- everything."
Palazzo features Las Vegas Sands' trademark attention to detail with over 70 different types of finishes.
The project boasts 1.8 million square feet (11,000 tons) of stone and marble. More than 400 stone masons are employed to lay floors, walls and columns.
The hotel tower is skirted by a four-level, 1-million-square-foot podium that houses a 105,000-square-foot casino, seven restaurants, a 2,000-seat theater, and an 80-store mall, including Barneys New York and Salvatore Ferragamo. (Each store and restaurant has its own individual contractor, adding yet another layer of coordination.) The low-rise additionally contains 450,000 square feet of convention space, topped by an outdoor pool and recreation deck 100 feet above the Strip.
The Palazzo will contain 45 pools, fountains and water features, plus six skylights and four dramatic 80-foot glass domes with wrought iron detailing.
The opulent finishes and elegant details have meant a mighty construction challenge, with nearly 20,000 pages of building documents.
Yet, the Palazzo, like its older sibling The Venetian, promises a grand new atmosphere of luxurious fun that is certain to generate heavy buzz once it makes its Strip debut on Dec. 20.
"The Palazzo's attention to details will create a unique presence on the Strip," said Reese. "And when combined with The Venetian, it will give us over 7,000 rooms on the Strip."