Hasta La Ideas

MGM Resorts has finally made it official and have filed a demolition request for Norman Foster‘s unopened Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas, something they’d hinted at last month, and before then back in the fall of last year, and had likely started considering way back in 2009 when construction defects were discovered too late and the project had to be massively scaled down. The company is still viciously fighting in court with the general contractor, Perini Building, who they claim made a number of massive errors which caused unsafe, unstable conditions and resulted in an unfinished building that cost nearly $300 million but is still unusable. However, it’s that ongoing legal fight that may stall the demolition itself, for as long as the battle continues in court, the Las Vegas Sun reports that the county can’t authorize the building’s destruction, thus likely extending this whole story by at least another year or two. For their part, Perini Building, who will not sign on to exploding the Harmon, believes that MGM wants the demolition as soon as possible to help cover up evidence of the design errors that had plagued the project from the start. The company also believes that the building can not only be repaired, but that it is currently safe, disputing research funded by MGM that found much to the contrary. Should MGM be able to wrangle their way around the legal system and get the county to agree to bringing down Foster’s hotel, the Sun reports that the company expects the demolition to take roughly six months, with five more months following to remove all the rubble and return it to the vacant lot it once was.

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