Norman Foster’s Harmon Hotel Gets Chopped in Half Due to Major Mistake and Financial Woes

Perhaps a look at what’s to come for buildings that were already under construction when the world’s economic outlook turned instantly grim comes this story from Las Vegas, where starchitect Norman Foster‘s Harmon hotel has been trimmed in height by nearly half, taking its initially planned 49 stories down to a mere 28. There was one big disaster that made the Harmon project more difficult: an accident that left 15 floors with “wrongly installed rebar” which immediately caused the developers to cut the residential portion in order to keep somewhere within the initial budget, thus resulting in the major trim off the top. But despite the major mistake, which would cause any construction project to suffer immensely, it raises our earlier question as to whether this might become the norm as credit continues to be tight and developers have more difficulty selling off remaining retail slots, residential offerings, etc. Will this just be an isolated lesson in “measure twice, cut once” or will we see more buildings suddenly get cut in half?

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