Marnell Corrao brings the experience from its operation of properties like the Rio (pictured) to the table when designing a project for a client.

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The Las Vegas skyline has Marnell Corrao written all over it. President Perry Eiman describes the company as one of the top-two contractors in the city, and with projects such as the Mirage, Bellagio and New York New York casino-hotels under its belt, it’s hard to argue with that.

Eiman insists the company’s contributions go beyond just what you can see, however.

With expertise not only in construction but also in architecture, interior design, consulting and development, Marnell Corrao brings a lot of varied experience to its projects.

Eiman says the integration of these different areas is what makes Marnell Corrao one of the premier firms in Las Vegas.

“We’re a little bit more diverse,” Eiman explains. “We offer a broader range of services and we don’t focus purely on the construction.”

The company’s success has given it enough breathing room to take stock of the projects available in the market and concentrate on the ones that make the most sense for Marnell Corrao and the client. “[For a long time,] we did anything from small restaurant remodels … all the way up to the projects as large as Bellagio and The Wynn,” Eiman says. “We’ve done all the big ones, we’ve done all the small ones and we’re now focusing in on doing the right ones.

“It’s not the quantity of projects,” he adds. “Let’s do a few projects with a few clients and let’s go do it the best anyone can do it.”

Marnell Corrao has been one of the most prominent builders in Las Vegas for decades, giving it an impressive portfolio of projects.

“Historically, the top two contractors in terms of size have been Marnell Corrao and Perini [Building Co.],” Eiman says. “Usually on major projects, it was either us or Perini.”

A recent project that sums up Marnell Corrao’s philosophy is the company’s remodel and addition to Caesars Palace. Born out of Marnell Corrao’s consulting work, the construction of a new hotel tower and convention space demon-strates how the firm’s multiple areas of expertise come into play and make it stronger, and is also an example of its strong relationships with Las Vegas’ prominent players.

Building Up
The project that brought Marnell Corrao into being and into the Las Vegas spotlight was the Tivoli Restaurant at Caesars Palace. Lud Corrao, owner of Corrao Construction Co. and architect Tony Marnell, who worked for the company and today serves as CEO and chairman of Marnell Corrao, teamed up for the project.

It was finished in 1974 in only 72 days, and in one stroke established the firm’s reputation for innovative work.

That reputation was bolstered when the firm began following the design/build approach, which at the time was practiced only by a handful of contractors and far from the norm. When Marnell Corrao took up design/build in the mid-1970s, the method hadn’t been sanctioned by the American Institute of Architects yet.

The obstacles in the way of widespread design/build were resistance to change from the traditional model of owner-architect-builder and the fact that most builders didn’t have multiple disciplines. Even if they wanted to utilize a design/build approach, they were stymied by the lack of design experience within their firms.

Marnell Corrao has since been vindicated for its faith in design/build, as the process has become much more prominent among contractors looking to bring added value to their clients. Many construction firms today have both design and construction components under one roof. Eiman says design/build has become one of the preferred project delivery methods in Las Vegas, thanks to the speed at which they can be built using that approach.

The move toward design/build industry-wide was helped along greatly by contractors expanding their services into multiple disciplines. Marnell Corrao has followed suit, bringing related areas such as consulting and architecture into the company’s expertise. “We’ve really transformed over the last three to four years with Marnell Consulting and Marnell Architecture where they’ve taken on a more significant part of our revenues,” Eiman says.

Having so many disciplines under one roof makes it easier for Marnell Corrao to satisfy clients’ needs because the company can take a deeper look at all aspects of the project.

“We’re looking at a project not just from a general contractor’s standpoint – we’re looking at it from a design aspect and, at the end of the day, from the operator’s standpoint,” he says.

In a lot of cases, the company will come into a project not from the construction side, but will be introduced through one of its other capabilities. “Construction ends up being a byproduct of that in many cases, and if it makes sense for us and the client to be the general contractor on that particular project then we have that capability which requires experienced and really talented people,” Eiman explains.

Fortunately for Marnell Corrao, the company has these talented people, according to Eiman. “We have, I think, the most qualified, most experienced people in the construction field, and I’ll put that up against anyone in the industry,” he says.

Brain Trust
Seeing a project through many different perspectives is the greatest benefit of having diverse business units, Eiman says. In fact, even when the company serves as only the general contractor on a project, it makes sure that every area of the company lends its knowledge to it. “We bring all parts of our company together and review every project,” Eiman says.

Even once the project is underway, the different business units often turn to each other for advice, according to Mitch Trageton, executive vice president of architecture. “Our business units can work in concert as far as a combined team involvement on a project, or we can operate independently,” he says. “That doesn’t preclude us from involving the construction side, asking questions about the constructability of a project or certain materials. We can use them as a resource.

“The benefits of that are fairly obvious as far as the design timelines are adjusted so that we can take advantage of working with construction in getting out in front of issues,” Trageton continues. “We can mitigate issues quicker in this respect than if we were operating as a traditional architectural firm.”

This is especially important in Las Vegas, where most projects require a little additional speed. “The big thrust of the projects that we do are very complex and fast-moving,” Trageton says.

From another perspective, Marnell Corrao brings the experience from its operation of properties like the Rio to the table when designing a project for a client. Trageton says clients are looking for “the most bang for their buck, and with that, there’s a lot of experience that we have in the operation of our projects.”

“What’s made building in Las Vegas unique is that the projects have always been on a fast-track schedule rather than the traditional design it, bid it and build it,” Eiman says. “That’s why our company has been so successful.”

Raising the Stakes
In a town where upping the ante is almost always encouraged, the hotel/casino has grown into a much different creature than it was in the 1960s – part hotel, part casino, part theme park, part shopping mall, part resort.

On top of that, today’s hotel/casinos are constantly trying to top each other. If one builds a simulated volcano, the other builds a pair of pirate ships.     

If one erects a replica of the Eiffel Tower, another duplicates the Statue of Liberty in front of a scaled-down New York skyline.

Eiman says operating in such an environment, where the onus is on contractors to bring such outlandish visions to life, comes naturally for Marnell Corrao because the company has been working in Vegas for decades. “The owners continue to push each other in terms of size and quality, so it’s a really unique place, and we’ve grown up in it,” he says.

From an architectural perspective, Trageton says, the old saying “form follows function” still applies, even when talking about multibillion-dollar projects like the Wynn Las Vegas hotel/casino resort, which Marnell Corrao built in 2005 with an estimated budget of $2.5 billion. “As far as designing a project here as opposed to anywhere else in the country, the functionality is still of paramount importance to the projects success he says.

“We pride ourselves on a design that is cognizant of the functionality and operational issues, as opposed to trying to sell to the owner an unachievable goal, if you will,” Trageton says.

The vision of the hotel/casino is continuing to evolve, he continues. Whereas hotels built in the 1960s through the 1990s tended to be known for extravagant themes – for example, the Stardust’s Space Age look or Treasure Island’s Caribbean pirate motif – themed hotel/casinos are starting to fall by the wayside. Treasure Island, for instance, has toned down its pirate elements, including removing the giant skull-and-crossbones sign that once stood on the Strip. The Luxor, known for its giant pyramid shape, is currently removing much of its ancient Egyptian theme.

“It seemed every property had identity through its theme,” Trageton says. “Most of the design of the hotel/casino industry now has run to a more timeless design, not a theme design.”

Most hotel/casinos are seeking to redefine themselves through their service and amenities, Trageton adds. This means more focus on the functionality of designs. “They’re becoming more integrated,” he says. “Twenty or 30 years ago, it seemed the casino drove the entire project.” Today, entertainment and retail drives much of the hotel/casino projects being developed in Las Vegas.

Giving Unto Caesars
One hotel/casino that Marnell Corrao has helped guide through the many changes in Las Vegas is Caesars Palace. After completing the Tivoli Restaurant project for Caesars, Marnell Corrao built a series of enhancements, including the Fantasy Tower now known as the Forum Tower with its two-story suites and the Porte Cohere, which remains one of the largest cantilevered single-pour concrete structures in the world.

The success of that project allowed Marnell Corrao the chance to take on an even more significant project – the construction and design of a $70 million addition to Caesars Atlantic City, N.J., in 1985. The company was tasked with building 300 additional guest rooms, an 800-seat showroom, three restaurants, a 10,000-square-foot health spa, a pool, a recreation deck and an expansion and remodeling of the casino. 

Eiman says the company has built a long and lasting relationship with Caesars Palace, now owned by Harrah’s. Marnell Corrao is currently working on another addition to Caesars, which will include a new 23-story, 665-room hotel tower and a new convention center. Eiman says the project grew out of the company’s consulting group.

“We worked with Harrah’s for more than a year, looking at their master plan not only in Las Vegas, but also in Atlantic City,” he says. The Caesars renovation is the first step in Harrah’s master plan for its properties in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and Marnell Corrao brought its multidimensional perspective to the project. “Through the consulting group, we brought all of our disciplines together,” Eiman says.

Chairman and CEO Tony Marnell, as the former owner of the Rio hotel/casino in Las Vegas, was able to bring an operator’s perspective to the project, Eiman says. The company’s experience in design and construction made it possible to create a design for the project that was efficient and cost-effective without the need for value-engineering.

“Value-engineering has a bad connotation to me,” Eiman explains. “I think you avoid value-engineering through proper planning up front.”

Looking Outward
Eiman says having all of the company’s business units so integrated is an important advantage as the cost of building in Las Vegas continues to rise.

“Quite frankly, in today’s times with the cost of land and the cost of construction, you have to be extremely efficient and extremely disciplined at all times,” Eiman says. Building in Las Vegas is “more challenging than ever right now, and we must look at each project that way,” he adds.

Having a brain trust that spans multiple disciplines gives Marnell Corrao problem-solving abilities beyond anything the company was capable of in the past, Eiman adds. “We’re now spending more time using our brains vs. just grinding out the process the traditional way,” he says.

There is still a healthy amount of work available in Las Vegas, Eiman says, and it should continue to be that way for some time. However, the plentiful work brings its own challenges. “One of the biggest challenges when you have this much work going on is manpower,” Eiman says. “There’s not an unlimited amount of tradesmen who do what we do.”

In addition, there are fewer young people entering the industry, and Eiman says that’s primarily because construction is an industry where workers learn by doing, and many young people are anxious to reach the top of their profession quickly. “Today’s generation, they want instant gratification,” Eiman says. “In our business, you really have to do it, experience it … because you can’t learn it in school.”

Fertile Desert
Even though the amount of work in Las Vegas means fewer available workers and fewer available professionals to manage them, Eiman says there isn’t a full-on labor shortage in the area.

“So far the town’s held up pretty well, the labor’s held up pretty well,” Eiman says. However, he says, finish tradesmen might be harder to come by as many large projects draw to a close.

The immediate future of the Las Vegas construction market looks strong, as well, Eiman says. Despite the economic slowdown, there are still plenty of projects coming online in the city, more than Eiman says he expected. “It did surprise me that more got build than I expected would get built,” he says.

Las Vegas is still a great place to be a contractor, he says, but some adjustments will have to be made to keep that friendly environment.

“Most places have booms and busts,” he says. “We have booms and then we have slowdowns.” Still, he anticipates an airport expansion will be needed before Las Vegas can grow much further than it has already.

“There will always be expansion and there will always be growth, and one day you’ll run out of land and you’ll run out of water,” Eiman says. “But they’ve been saying that for 20 years.”