Power Up. Project CityCenter could require up to 130 MW when it is completed in 2009.

"It’s the largest single-site project in southern Nevada, on par with a gold mining operation," says Jeff Ceccarelli, Nevada Power Co.’s senior vice president of service delivery and operations. "It will require roughly five to six times the load of a large Strip hotel casino."

Tishman Construction Corp., New York, is the construction manager, with Perini Building Co., a unit of Perini Corp., Framingham, Mass., as the general contractor. The guaranteed-maximum-price construction contract is worth $3 billion. The 18-million-sq-ft project is to debut in November 2009.

The development is anchored by two 60-story crescent-shaped glass towers, designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, New Haven, Conn., housing 4,000 hotel rooms, a 150,000-sq-ft casino and 2,000-seat theater for a new Cirque du Soleil show. There also are two 400-room non-gaming hotels, 500,000 sq ft of retail shops, dining and entertainment venues, and 1,640 luxury condominium units. The project is more than halfway into its 20-month design. Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, New York City, is the master-plan architect, with Gensler, San Francisco, as architect-of-record.

MGM Mirage in September awarded a six-year, $100-million design-build contract to Siemens Corp., New York City, to provide CityCenter’s electrical and building technologies. The contract could grow as design is finalized, says Ken Aurichio, a Siemens spokesman.

CityCenter is estimated to require a peak load of 80 MW, eventually ramping up to 130 MW upon build-out, says Nevada Power. The complex will account for roughly 2.2% of the Las Vegas Valley’s total electrical consumption on a hot summer day. "We anticipate CityCenter’s energy usage estimates will fall off dramatically through our use of conservation techniques, new technology and green-building practices," says Gordon Absher, an MGM spokesman.

Nevada Power expects to spend $75 million on infrastructure improvements to meet the added demand. This includes expanding four nearby substations as well as transmission line enhancements. Nevada Power also will build a new substation with five transformers.