When the original version of the rat pack movie Ocean’s Eleven came out in 1960, the Las Vegas that it sought to glamourise was a very different place from that which provides the backdrop for the new version of the movie that has been attracting big audiences. The Strip that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior and company coolly strutted down may have seemed glamourous at the time but it was a tawdry little alleyway compared to the Strip that George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and friends feature in.
The development of Las Vegas in recent years has been phenomenal, if not always in the most understated style that good taste would dictate. Where once the glitziness of Vegas stood for sleaze and crime, it now seems to represent high camp with tongue firmly in cheek. Neon lights inside and out, wherever you look. You either love it or hate it. Conexpo is a calendar highlight for the construction equipment industry but, for many, one week in Vegas every three years is plenty.
As the photographs on these pages show, there is very little let up in the pace of development. Even without Conexpo-Con/Agg coming to town this month, there is no shortage of cranes for visitors to Las Vegas to look up at. Says Paul Cichocki, a Las Vegas photographer who took these shots: ‘I figure Las Vegas has to be one of the most under-construction towns in the USA for its size. It sure is amazing.’
Just on or around the Strip there are six major projects with big cranes on them. The southside of the Venetian Hotel is being upgraded, with 1,000 extra bedrooms being built over an above-ground car parking structure which has had to be strengthened to take the loads. There is work going on at the Mirage. The Fashion Show Mall on the strip is in the midst of a major facelift. The second of four towers of the Turnberry Place development – a premium priced condominium complex – is nearing completion on Paradise Road just across the street from the Hilton and the Convention Center. Caesars Palace is being renovated. And a convention centre is being added to the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
The attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001 and consequent economic uncertainties brought a temporary halt to the Mandalay Bay project, which only restarted last month, and to the Venetian’s extension where work is slated to re-start next month. The Venetian – so called because it ostensibly recreates Italy’s flooded city, complete with gondolas being punted along second-storey canals – is owned by Sheldon Adelson whose attention to detail and desire for control is such that he bought three Liebherr HC 550 tower cranes for the construction of his hotel. Two of the three have stayed in storage since the first phase was completed in 1999 but one is up (shown on the front cover) and is waiting to resume work on the extension, or phase 1A as it is called. A second 550 will be erected in June. Adelson didn’t get rich by being dumb and so calls in experts to maintain and operate his cranes. Local company Jake’s Crane & Rigging has the contract.
The Mandalay Bay hotel and casino expansion, which includes a 165,000m2 (1.8 million sq.ft) convention centre, was also halted by the 11 September attacks but restarted last month. Jake’s is providing American 9310 crawler cranes, a Link Belt 718 crawler crane, several big rough terrains, and at least one 125 ton conventional truck crane for this project.
Turnberry Place, not far from the Convention Center, is described by its developer as ‘the most luxurious residential enclave to be built in Las Vegas in decades’, with condominiums set to cost anything from $1m to $4m. But Le Reve (French for ‘The Dream’) may prove to be Vegas’s most extravagant project ever. Previously known as the Desert Inn, Le Reve will be one of the largest hotel-casino projects to grace the Las Vegas skyline in close to a decade of high-rise construction. This 42 storey, crescent shaped structure will have approximately 2,400 rooms and be surrounded by low-rise structures including an aquatic theatre. Tower cranes for phase one of this project – a 23ha (56 acre) resort high-rise – are scheduled to begin erection in late summer. Jake’s is supplying three of its Tower Gantry cranes with 165m of tower and 58m of boom.
