Las Vegas Convention Center is undergoing a massive $1.4 billion renovation.
Las Vegas Convention Center is starting a whole-venue renovation and adding a fourth ballroom.
“Our building was originally constructed in 1989,” said Terry Jicinsay, senior vice president of operations. “We’ve had 14 renovations and expansions and we’re adding a significant fourth hall now, which will add to and renovate our facility.”
Rendering of the interior of the new 1.4 million-square-foot enhancement being built at Las Vegas Convention Center, to be completed by December 2020.
The new hall will be 600,000 square feet; with meeting rooms and support space, it will create a 1.4 million-square-foot venue.
“After the expansion is completed, we will come back to our existing building and completely renovate the 3.2 million square feet of existing space,” he said. “In the end there will be a 4.6 million-square-foot facility, one of the largest in the world.”
The budget for the expansion is $860 million. The renovation of the existing facility will take $540 million.
A ceremonial groundbreaking was held in January, and the site is now under construction. “The building itself will start steel and concrete in September,” said Jicinsay. “We expect to open in January of 2021 and our first guest to be CES 2021.”
The renovation of the existing building will start immediately after the addition of the fourth exhibit hall is open and will be completed by the end of 2023. The work will be done in incremental bits and no bookings will be affected. “As a hall closes for a renovation, that client will go to another hall,” he explained.
Goals of the renovations to the existing facility are to improve technology, upgrade food and beverage, improve the amount of and access to public space and create more social spaces for people to gather.
The concessionaire at LVCC is Centerplate, which is in the first year of a seven-year contract.
The lead architect is TVS Design, based in Atlanta, with input from four local Las Vegas architects: TSK Architects, Simpson Coulter Studio, Carpenter Sellers Del Gatto Architects and KME Architects.
Rob Svedberg, principal at TVS Design, said that his firm was one of three teams that responded to the competition but “we’ve been chasing this for five to six years.” TVS Design won the contract in December.
“The designs are fluid right now but the main parts are in place,” said Svedberg. “We’re out of the schematic design phase, with imagery and layouts set, but still early in the overall design scheme.”
Svedberg confirmed that construction will begin in the fall, with a finish date of 2020. The schedule to complete the building is "aggressive but realistic,” he said.
“The big challenge is making sure the campus is unified,” Svedberg said. “We need to reach back into the existing campus to make sure that it all flows together.
“There is a ribbon across the entire facility that will turn the entire space into one building,” he pointed out. “Where it rises up is where you enter the building and it works as a wayfinding experience so people know where they are.”
Another barrier was creating spaces that flow and don’t feel like the guest “is walking through a long endless hallway. We are putting coffee shops in place, gathering spaces and other ammenites that break up the monotony of walking down a long, straight hallway.
“Our designs are geared toward how do we shrink the building so they walk through it in comfort and ease,” said Svedberg. “People can sit down and have an informal gathering space, stop for coffee or something to eat; it’s similar to how you walk down the street in a city. With activities along the way you are stimulated by all the things you can do.”
TVS has not been contracted for the next phase of the renovation. “We’ve submitted a comprehensive plan for the renovation to the existing structure,” said Svedberg. “But the contract for the phase won’t be biddable for a while.”
According to Jicinsay, the construction is expected to generate $2.1 million in construction-related local economic impact, 7,800 full-time jobs, and $810 million in economic impact to the city.