Fifty years ago, a small “hotel” department at a little-known university in the desert started as the “College of Hotel Administration.” Over the next five decades, it became the University of Nevada at Las Vegas’ (UNLV’s) flagship program, and one of the top-ranked hospitality colleges in the world. To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary this Spring, the college launched its new state-of-the art academic building, renaming it, “William F. Harrah College of Hospitality.” The new LEED Silver Certified building was designed by Carpenter Sellers Del Gatto Architects, and McCarthy Building Group and Giroux Glass played a major role in making the beautiful new landmark happen.
The 93,500 square feet building touts many wonderful features:
- learning, meeting and office spaces
- a state-of-the-art commercial classroom/kitchen
- Convertible, interactive classrooms
- A student-run café
- Function space overlooking the Las Vegas Strip
- A PGA Golf Management learning center
- Common spaces for students and educators to mingle and collaborate, both inside and outside on multiple, spacious patios
The student-run cafe inside the front lobby
Our scope included both interior and exterior glazing. On the exterior, we installed curtain wall, aluminum glass doors, sunshades at the South curtain wall, and Trex Commercial Products’ railing hardware with Triview tempered/laminated glass. On the interior, we installed: all glass storefronts, by C.R.Laurence and Guardian glass by Trulite; all glass doors by C.R.Laurence and glass by OldCastle; sliding glass door at the student café by C.R.Laurence and glass by Glasswerks; glass railing by Trex Commercial Products.
A huge round of applause needs to go to our Giroux Glass field crew, who worked on this project for several months, headed by Blane Midkiff (foreman), Tim Gibson (fabrication foreman of frame assembly), and to Jose Paez (CAD technician), who completed our CAD drawings.
Special thanks also go to McCarthy PM, Carl Dudzinski, Superintendent, Dave Schmidt, and Project Executive, Paul Dudzinski, who did a wonderful job of leading this project. I think the results speak for themselves, this is a beautiful addition to the UNLV campus. We were thrilled to win the coveted Guardian Award for “Best Medium Project” at an awards ceremony in early March (see photo, below) and to see the project highlighted in Glass Magazine. It’s so gratifying to see our hard work be appreciated!
