14 ❙ Hospitality Construction ❙ September/October 2007

On a roll!With ongoing capital improvements to existing properties and the CityCenter project underway, MGM Mirage has its hands full

Industry Q&A

Bill Smith, president, MGM Mirage Design Group.

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MGM Mirage, one of the world’s lead-ing hotel and gaming companies,owns and operates 17 propertieslocated in Nevada, Mississippi andMichigan and has investments in

three other properties in Nevada, New Jersey andIllinois. The company owns such world-knownbrands of hotel casinos as Circus Circus,Treasure Island, Beau Rivage, Bellagio,Excalibur, Mirage and Mandalay Bay.

New developments are underway, includingCityCenter, a $7.4-billion-dollar, mixed-use urbandevelopment in Las Vegas; a new MGM Grandhotel and casino complex in Detroit; and the com-pany has a 50-percent interest in MGM GrandMacau, a hotel-casino resort under construction inMacau S.A.R.

CityCenter, a design collaboration between MGMMirage and eight design architects that will openin late 2009, will include a 4,000-room hotel/casi-no, two 400-room non-gaming hotels, a condo/hotel and residential units and a retail district with500,000 square feet of retail, dining and enter-tainment. It will be designed as a vertical city on76 acres on the Las Vegas Strip.

The following is a transcript of a conversationbetween Bill Smith, president of MGM MirageDesign Group, and Chelsie Butler, editor ofHospitality Construction.

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Hospitality: How is your con-struction department organ-ized? What are its primaryresponsibilities?Smith: I work for the MGM MirageDesign Group — a subsidiary ofMGM Mirage — and our job is toensure that we deliver projects ontime and on budget. We have sev-eral departments, including design,which is made up of architects andinterior designers, and its primaryrole is to assemble the designteams and develop a list of archi-tects that we may consider for aproject before we send out RFPs.

Another goal is to ensure thatthe design itself that is being pro-posed is consistent with opera-tional input from our teams. Weinterface with operations duringthe design phase to make sure wehave picked up all of the importantoperational points and to makesure we have a space that worksfunctionally and efficiently.

Then we have the constructiondepartment, which has the respon-sibility of taking the drawings asthey are completed to market,monitoring the budget and sched-

ule and making sure the workman-ship being done is at the standardwe expect it to be. The purchasingteam is responsible for purchasingFF&E — drywall, wall coverings,furniture, lights, accessories, etc.,which are all specified by the inte-rior designer.

We also have a team in charge ofall permits on CityCenter. Recentlyon the CityCenter project, where Ihave about 170 people under myresponsibility, we had 42 permitswe needed to secure from ClarkCounty. We really have to knowwhat these are and how fast thecounty can issue permits to us. Weneed to make sure they are sensi-tive to what we need in terms oftiming. This would generally fallunder our construction depart-ment, but we added this team tothis project because of its size.

Cost controls was another teamadded to CityCenter. They areresponsible for collecting all of thecost information for design andconstruction and integrating it withthe OSE budget, finance insurancecosts and taxes. Also added was ascheduling team. There are five

people who monitor this, andwhen I say schedule, I mean theentire project schedule, which inte-grates all of the other departmentschedules. It is made up of about10,000 activities, and it is updatedweekly so we can determine ifthere is an impact to the overallschedule if any changes occur.

In charge of our overall capitalimprovements for all projects inthe entire company is TonyMancini, senior vice president ofcapital improvements. We haveabout anywhere between 90 to100 projects that we are workingon at once. And this includes any-thing on a property that needs tobe refurbished. We renovate therooms of each property every threeto five years, which equals about3,000 rooms per year. We run inthe range of $300-$400 million ayear in capital improvements withhis team.

What is a typical week like foryou in your position?

A typical day for me mightinvolve people coming to my officeevery morning, each with issues

CityCenter is a $7.4-billion, mixed-use, vertical city in Las Vegas that will feature multiple hotel venues, a casino,a convention center and a retail and restaurant district.

that need sorting out. We also dis-cuss budgets and track where weare in the permitting process daily.We had 68 meetings here lastweek for the CityCenter project,and last night we met about theinterior design schedule for thehotel/casino to make sure each

date falls in line with the overallcompletion dates. I met all day yes-terday with the contractor to makesure the approvals process is run-ning efficiently. Tomorrow we aremeeting about all of the exteriorskin of all of the podiums and willlook at pricing to make sure mate-

rials are all within the budget. Weneed to have real-time communica-tion with everyone involved to beeffective.

Since it is what your main focusis on, can you tell us about theCityCenter project?

In past projects like the Bellagioand Mirage, we took 40 to 50 acresand typically placed a three-wingtower, which is most the efficientlayout, with elevators in the middleand the ground floor encompass-ing the entire low rise of the proj-ect. In the rear is the back ofhouse for services and delivery.This plan is great if you have thatmuch space, but that is not thecase with CityCenter. Instead weare building vertically.

The floor area ratio — what theratio is of the land to the entirebuilding — for a typical city wouldbe seven to eight; and at CityCent-er we are at six. Each separatepodium is built vertically with mul-tiple levels.

Are the buildings being built topursue the LEED certification?

Yes, and when we achieve it, itwill be the largest LEED-certifiedproject ever. We looked at certaintypes of glass that provide differentlevels of shade into the room andsave energy. We are also recaptur-ing waste water to use for land-scaping. The majority of thespaces will be non-smoking. Weare making sure we are usingmaterials with low emission levels.There will be a central plant onsitewhere we will produce hot andcold water for the entire project.

What are some of the majordesign and construction issuesyou deal with regularly?

Early on, you have to be surethat the design concept you areputting together is right. If you takean idea and move forward — and itis not right — operationally therecould be shortfalls. This requirescollaboration with our team, opera-tions and the designers. The con-cept needs to be implemented

Bill Smith BioFileAs president of MGM Mirage’s

Design Group, Bill Smith isresponsible for the managementof all design and construction ofCityCenter. These departmentsinclude: architecture, interiordesign, construction, purchasingand contract administration.

In addition to the CityCenterproject, he and his team managecapital improvement projects atBellagio, Mirage, New York-New York, Treasure Island,Beau Rivage, Circus Circusand Gold Strike Tunica. On ayearly basis, the DesignGroup manages approxi-mately 95 different proj-ects.

Smith joined the com-pany in 1995 as vice pres-ident responsible for thedesign and construction ofMirage Atlantic City andthe $330-million AtlanticCity/Brigantine Connec-tor. He was also responsi-ble for the construction ofBeau Rivage Hotel/Casino, which opened in

March 1999, and the Spa Toweraddition in 2005.

Prior to 1995 Smith served asa partner with Rouse &Associates and was responsiblefor the design and constructionof Liberty Place, an $800-mil-lion mixed-use project in down-town Philadelphia. Smith is agraduate of Temple Universityin Philadelphia with a Bachelorof Science degree in architec-ture. He is a registered architectand member of the AmericanInstitute of Architects.

Industry Q&A

16 ❙ Hospitality Construction ❙ September/October 2007

Personal PointsWHAT IS PLAYING IN YOUR CAR STEREO?Best of Jazz

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE?Somewhere in Time, 1980

WHAT IS A BOOK THAT HAS INSPIRED YOU?Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and OthersDon’t, by Jim Collins

WHERE IS YOUR FAVORTIE VACATION VENUE?Italy and Switzerland

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18 ❙ Hospitality Construction ❙ September/October 2007

Industry Q&A

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PUBLICATIONwithin the final documents, anddrawings have to reflect the con-cept. So we form a team whosefull-time responsibility is to go intothe field and physically look at thework as it being installed to makesure it matches the documents.

Future challenges having to dowith CityCenter will be deliveringall parts of the project on the samedate. When we developed the mas-ter plan in 2004 all the buildingssat inside the footprint. We haveapproximately 70 retail tenantsthat have to build out their spaces.We continue to meet with ClarkCounty officials to make sure theyhave ample staff to come and doon-site inspections.

Anotherchallengewill bebringing inthe 12,000employeesthat needto be hiredand train-ed andintegrated

into the buildings six months be-fore we open. We will finish theareas they need to access first andmake sure such things as the firealarms are working in those areas.Opening date means that there willbe meat in the freezers and winesin the cooler.

How do you manage to stay onschedule and budget?

We prepare the budget with ourfinance team and track costagainst expenditures, and they pro-vide us with cost updates. We alsohave a web-based cost manage-ment system in place so any oneof us can access and evaluate thebudget. Updating budgets as plans

develop would be impossible to dousing paper copies. We also requi-re regular updates from the entireteam.

As for the project schedule, welink ours with the general contrac-tor. The design team works inAutoCad, an industry standard. Aformat of how all of these docu-ments have to look was generatedat the beginning of the projectsand handed out to everyone. OnAugust 1, 2009, we will turn overour first building to the owner.

How do you select the variousvendors for your properties?

We look at the quality of thecompany — not specifically pricing.What is their experience? Havethey done something similar towhat we need now? And we ask tosee examples of their work. If theypass this first test, we then deter-mine if they have the capacity todo this within our timeframe.

Do you generally use the samevendors for all of your projects?

It depends. On CityCenter, we

After Hurricane Katrina, the Beau Rivage inBiloxi, Miss., still retained its structure, althoughthe damage removed much of the casino’s foot-print. The renovated casino opened exactly oneyear after the hurricane hit.

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Industry Q&A

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When building or renovating anew casino, what are the majorpermitting challenges?

In Las Vegas, permitting isalways something you have toschedule ahead of time. ClarkCounty is very advanced in whatthey do. In New York City, becausetheir workload is so intense, youcan self certify with a pre-approval.As we begin to develop the projectschedule, we have to be sure weare in sync with that particularapproving agency. If a permit usu-ally takes 10 to 12 weeks, we planon the possibility of it taking 14 to15.

Another key component of reno-vations is timing. For example, inearly December — two weeksbefore Christmas — hotels are notas busy, so it would be an idealtime to shut down for a few weeksto renovate.

What have been some of MGMMirage’s biggest successeswhile you have been there?

The reopening of the BeauRivage. We are all aware of whathappened with Katrina — we had3,200 employees at the property.When we built it and opened in1999, we designed the casinobarge to withstand a Category 5hurricane with a waterline surge of20 feet. The surge that camethrough was about 24 feet. We had

4-ft.-high waves striking the casino,which removed much of the casinoand its footprint. We were the onlyproperty that still had a structure— the barge, tower and concretestill there after the hurricane.

We made a corporate commit-ment that we would reopen BeauRivage one year after the date ofthe hurricane. We had not figuredout how, but we said we would,and we accomplished this goal. We

called the general contractor whobuilt the original structure andassembled a whole team. By thetime we assessed what we neededto do, a month had alreadypassed. We had to work aroundwhatever we were not able to getand figure out other solutions. Allof the materials had to be truckedin. Fuel was delivered to the site tokeep the lights on, and cleaningthe debris took another month. Itwas a very compressed and com-plicated work process, but theBeau Rivage reopened when wesaid it would.

What are some of the construc-tion plans for the future?

We have a 70-acre site at theother end of the strip, which weare planning in a joint venture.

Early on, you have to besure that the design concept youare putting together is right. Ifyou take an idea and move for-ward — and it is not right —operationally there could beshortfalls.

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CityCenter’s Veer Towers on the left feature condominium residences; theretail and entertainment district, which houses clubs, restaurants, retailersand galleries, is in the middle under a crystalline canopy; and the HarmonHotel, Spa & Residences on the right features a reflective exterior.