Imploding "The Harmon"

MGM Folds Vegas Tower

Excerpt:

Designed by famed architect Norman Foster, the Harmon fronts the Las Vegas Strip at CityCenter, which MGM owns with Dubai World and includes multiple condo and hotel towers as well as a casino and a mall.

The development has been beset with problems, including the deaths of six construction workers and financial losses since it opened at the end of 2009. Those losses have narrowed more recently.

Now MGM and general contractor Perini Building Co. are locked in a legal dispute over around $200 million that MGM says it shouldn't have to pay Perini and other contractors due to severe construction failures at the Harmon.

According to a release Monday from MGM, a court order prohibits alteration or destruction of the Harmon while the legal dispute continues. As a result, MGM management is hoping that county approval of the demolition plan will help it in seeking relief from that order.

Perini contends that MGM's portrayal of the Harmon as a practically irreparable public safety concern is fear-mongering to get out of paying bills for a building it no longer needed after condo-buyer demand dried up and the tourism market slowed.

In a letter to Clark County Director of Development Services Ron Lynn, CityCenter's senior vice president of facility improvements, William Ham, wrote: "CityCenter has decided to abate the potential for structural collapse in case of a code-level earthquake.... CityCenter will demolish the Harmon Building."

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