Las Vegas Bets Green

LAS VEGAS — The popular image of this desert gambling mecca is that of indulgence and indiscriminate consumption. Words that rarely come to mind: Conservation. Sustainability. Green. Yet it’s the famous Las Vegas Strip that’s modeling eco-friendly practices.

In Nevada, plans are underway to build more than 100 million square feet of new construction to the standards of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

More than half of that involves casino-resort projects on and around the Las Vegas Strip, not including the 8.3 million square feet of the 7-month-old, $1.9 billion Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, which, in May, was designated the nation’s largest LEED-certified building.

The scale of the Vegas projects, as well as the promise of 40 million tourists a year using and learning from these buildings, has excited Brendan Owens, the council’s vice president for LEED certification.

“There’s only so many places where projects like these can happen,” he says. “Las Vegas can serve as a bellwether for mainstream companies and organizations that are not necessarily focused on the environment to say, ‘You know what? These guys are doing it, so can we.’ ”

The projects gunning for LEED certifications include the $2.9 billion Fontainebleau Resort, the $1.9 billion tower addition to Caesars Palace, the $4.8 billion Echelon resort and the $9.2 billion, six-high-rise CityCenter complex. Some LEED-inspired innovations:

•Boyd Gaming’s Echelon, due to open in 2010, recycles building waste by using materials left over from the Stardust resort that was imploded to make way for it, such as part of the concrete used in its fountains.

•For CityCenter, opening next year, MGM Mirage built its own energy generator to provide a fifth of its own power and to use the excess heat generated to warm the water to be used for the 7,400 hotel rooms and condo units as well as the dozens of shops, restaurants and other amenities planned.

•Solar panels heat both the Palazzo’s pools and, in the summer, the water in guest rooms.

•Fontainebleau, opening next year, plans the “first paperless hotel room” by providing an iMac computer in each suite loaded with information normally found in in-room brochures.

Each of these projects is helped along by USGBC standards that allow the developers to separate their casinos from the rest of the resorts when going for LEED status, a controversial distinction that Owens defends. Including the casinos would almost certainly sink the attainment of LEED status because the USGBC frowns on smoking in public places, and no Las Vegas casino is smoke-free.

“The way I always look at the Palazzo, for example, is that the casino is 250,000 square feet and the rest of the project is 8 million square feet, so we needed to be able to recognize the achievement on the bulk of the project,” Owens says.

About three miles from the Strip, the state’s first LEED-certified Gold project is the $107 million Molasky Corporate Center, which, among other innovations, uses recycled denim for insulation. And LEED has given a new green-neighborhood designation, one of a handful awarded nationally, to the $6 billion, 61-acre Union Park development across from the Molasky center, which will include a $360 million performing-arts center, three hotels, a Frank Gehry-designed brain research center, several office buildings and thousands of residential units.

Both MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment, with a combined 28 casino properties in Nevada, have plans to re-evaluate older properties and have taken steps such as switching to compact fluorescent lighting and installing sensors to turn off air-conditioning units when people aren’t in their rooms.

Altruism isn’t the only motivation. Nevada law provides property tax rebates of 25% to 35% to builders whose projects are LEED-certified.

And many tourists are skeptical that these eco-friendly acts can alter the city’s image.

“You think Vegas, you just think of this huge international symbol of waste,” says Mark Vitter of Manchester, England. “I love Las Vegas, but its very existence is almost a crime against nature. No amount of conservation can replace what ought not be used in the first place.”

Environmental groups wish the resorts would do more to involve the millions of Vegas tourists in the act. The Sierra Club’s Nevada director, Lydia Ball, says recycle bins are scarce at the resorts and non-existent on outdoor sidewalks along the Strip.

MGM Mirage spokesman Gordon Absher says there’s a reason for that: It’s unsightly.

“Keep in mind that we are in the resort-hotel business, and the people come to stay with us to have a four-diamond experience,” Absher says. “As practical as they are, sometimes the big blue bin just doesn’t fit in with the décor. We do recycle, but we don’t need to ask our guests to do the work for us.”

By Steve Friess, USA TODAY