Convention Center West Hall 99% completed with $6.75M overrun
The West Hall expansion will cost the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority a little more than board members originally expected.
The LVCVA board of directors on Tuesday amended its contract and approved a payment of $6.75 million to the Turner Martin-Harris Joint Venture for the cost overrun.
LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill said an additional payment would likely be made in the months ahead as the contractor and Miller Project Management, the LVCVA’s hired owner representative, reconcile additional charges resulting from social distancing requirements in the construction process from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2 percent additional cost of the latest change orders is within the contracted overrun expectation for a project of that scale and the building’s total cost increased to $987.1 million. The overrun is being paid out of a budgeted contingency fund.
The LVCVA took possession of the building with a temporary certificate of occupancy on Dec. 21 and considers the project 99 percent completed.
The few finishing touches that remain for completion include carpet installation at the atrium grand staircase and Level 2 west concourse; the installation of a video wall in the atrium lobby as well as a video-wall chiller to keep the 10,000-square-foot screen cool; electrical vehicle charging stations in the facility’s Diamond Parking Lot; surface-to-tunnel ramps leading to Stations 1 and 3 of the facility’s people-mover developed by Elon Musk’s Boring Co.; and bollards protecting station entrances.
While escalators and flooring are completed for the Station 2 entrance near the front of the Convention Center, an elevator has yet to be completed.
The last coats of paint are being applied to walls in the West Hall and solar panels are being added to the two ends of the tunnel system.
LVCVA Chief Operating Officer Brian Yost said 91,000 labor hours were worked on the expansion in December, totaling more than 4 million hours of work on the project since its groundbreaking in 2018.
The project was to be completed in time for CES 2021, which began Monday as a completely online convention. The LVCVA expects CES to be live in Las Vegas for its CES 2022 show.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
