Tutor-Saliba

A sure bet┬áAs the construction of Planet Hollywood Towers nears completion, Gerry Tan of Tutor-Saliba and Mark Waltrip of Westgate Resorts talk to Gay Sutton about the challenges and achievements in creating an iconic new building on the Las Vegas Strip. Come September this year the stunning new Planet Hollywood Towers will open its doors on the Las Vegas Strip.  Not only is it refreshingly new in design but it is the first major project to bring the timeshare concept to the heart of the entertainment capital of the world. Rising to 51 stories above the legendary Strip and designed by architect Gerald B. Koi for Westgate Resorts, the state-of-the-art tower consists of timeshare units, condominium units and luxury penthouses, all of which are fully integrated with the new Planet Hollywood Casino and Hotel, and the Miracle Mile shopping mall that literally wraps around the casino.The story began some six years ago when Planet Hollywood bought the old and failed Aladdin Hotel and Casino along with the Desert Passage Mall out of bankruptcy and began to breathe new life into the complex. ÔÇ£The original Aladdin was always crippled by the design constraints of the original building and how it interfaced with both pedestrian and street traffic,ÔÇØ explains Mark Waltrip, COO of Westgate Resorts. ÔÇ£Planet Hollywood went through a massive engineering project, not only changing the entire elevation, look and feel of the building, but also vastly improving its interface with the Las Vegas traffic.ÔÇØWhile this was in progress, Westgate Resorts purchased a five-acre plot of land alongside the old Aladdin and began the development of Planet Hollywood Towers, designing it to link seamlessly with the re-engineered shopping mall, casino and hotel. Construction and civil engineering company Tutor-Saliba started work on the build in January 2007, and according to project executive Gerry Tan, itÔÇÖs on schedule for completion in August of this year, ready for the official opening in September. Coming with a total construction cost of over $600 million, the tower is already visually stunning, completely clad in blue glass. It has a distinctive red glass-clad fin that soars up from ground level and progressively extends out from the building, housing a series of spectacular balconies. Enclosing 1.5 million square feet of accommodation, the tower contains a total of 1,216 units above a low-rise podium that will provide 300,000 square feet of meeting rooms, retail outlets, offices and a beautiful outdoor pool complex. ÔÇ£We call it bringing the inside out and the outside in,ÔÇØ says Waltrip. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs unique in that, while youÔÇÖre walking through the lobby or through the mall, youÔÇÖre looking at this beautiful sandy beach: a modern pool with two stories of cabana wrapping around the back of it.ÔÇØThe build has presented some interesting challenges for Tan and his team. For example, constructing such a tall tower block with a 450-foot by 80-foot footprint on a plot of less than five acres has meant that there is very little room onsite for staging the building materials. This has necessitated some very nifty planning and logistics operations in collaboration with suppliers and the local authorities.ÔÇ£First, we leased a couple of offsite yards located two or three blocks from our site, and thatÔÇÖs where we stage the materials. Then we have materials delivered to our site as and when we need them,ÔÇØ says Tan. Even then, with such a tiny space to play with on the building site, the timing was key. Detailed schedules for all elements of the build were documented and adhered to so that materials could be delivered either from the offsite yards or directly from suppliers, in the exact quantities needed and precisely at the specified time. ÔÇ£The challenge,ÔÇØ he continues, ÔÇ£was making sure the logistics were planned properly and adhered to. The transportation of materials and travel time had to be considered to properly schedule road closure and tower crane hoisting.ÔÇØ Tan has also been working closely with the local authorities to coordinate access to the external boundaries of the site.┬áÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve been able to secure permission from the county to close one or two lanes of the county road as needed for materials staging and hoisting,ÔÇØ he says.The ambitious and high-specification nature of the design has also presented Tan with some challenges. Unlike most buildings of this nature, the layout configuration and design specification of the units varies considerably, and this has added an extra layer of complexity to the materials requirements. ÔÇ£For example, when we were ordering and taking delivery of the kitchen stone tops, we couldnÔÇÖt order 2,000 pieces of just one size.ÔÇØ And this complexity became even more challenging when coordinating the final delivery of precisely the right parts to the site for installation at the right time.When construction began, Las Vegas was in the middle of an economic boom. Buildings were going up across the city, and both labor and materials were in short supply. ÔÇ£Our project is located on the Strip, where several major projects are being constructed at the same time. Everyone was competing for resources such as manpower and materials like glass. We had to get our crew to work overtime to keep to our schedules.ÔÇØ The story is very different now that recession has struck. ÔÇ£We have less challenge in getting manpower and materials now. I wish weÔÇÖd had this in 2007,ÔÇØ he comments. For Westgate Resorts, though, the recession seems to be having a reverse effect. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve been selling the Planet Hollywood Towers timeshares for several years now, and weÔÇÖre doing in excess of $100 million in sales a year,ÔÇØ Waltrip says. ÔÇ£The economy has had no impact on timeshares. In fact, our sales efficiencies have actually gone up since the recession began.ÔÇØ People, it seems, are recognizing the value of buying a share in the property the week that they choose for vacation rather than buying all 52 weeks of the year and incurring all the associated expenses of ownership. So far, around 20 percent of the units have been sold, and the penthouses will be going on sale this summer.Eventually, when the market is more favorable, Westgate plans to begin Phase Two of the project, a second tower to complete the H-shaped configuration designed by the architect, but the timing of this is uncertain at the moment. However, if past experience is anything to go by, Las Vegas may be one of the first places to suffer in a recession, but itÔÇÖs also generally one of the first to recover.  ÔÇô Editorial research by Greg Petzold┬á