The Las Vegas Strip – home to a selection of the world’s most eminent and prestigious hotels and casinos – will be made more environmentally friendly with the addition of a sustainable resort to its roster. The new resort will be 18 metres by 18 metres in size, named CityCenter, and produced as a result of a collaboration involving Dubai World and MGM Mirage. It will open for business towards the tail end of 2009.

Information on the environmental aspects of the new Las Vegas strip resort was released on 7th August 2009, and this included the following features:

• ACU (Air Conditioning Unit)-equipped slot machines
• An 8.5-MW natural gas plant, to provide clean energy in situ
• A fleet of associated stretch limousines that run on natural gas
• Water conservation measures

Las Vegas CityCenter

The Las Vegas CityCenter is currently being constructed, and environmental concerns have featured here, too: in excess of 230,000 tons of waste generated by the build has been recycled so far.

“CityCenter captures the energy and diversity of Las Vegas in one of the world's largest green urban developments”, Jim Murren, chairman and chief executive officer of MGM Mirage, stated.

He added: “Designing CityCenter with sustainable elements and practices reinforces its permanence and creates a healthier environment for our guests and residents, as well as for the 12,000 people who ultimately will work at CityCenter.”

Environmental Buildings

CityCenter will exist in accordance with the Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) programme, which lays down standards for environmental buildings within the US and beyond.

The Las Vegas strip extends to 6.1 kilometres in length, and it is characterised by highly visible architectural designs and extensive illuminations.

Environmental technologies are becoming more and more a part of the US construction industry. In June 2009, Enviro-News wrote of how the country’s tallest skyscraper, Chicago’s Sears Tower, was set to undergo an environmental “retrofit”, involving a whole host of new environmental technologies.

Two months earlier, in April, it emerged that the iconic Empire State Building would be made more energy efficient and, thus, its carbon footprint reduced.