Leading the Las Vegas Strip into a new era of luxury hospitality, the 67-story Fontainebleau Las Vegas—now the tallest occupiable building in Nevada—boasts 3,644 chic hotel rooms and suites, a 150,000-square-foot casino, 550,000 square feet of convention and meeting space and 36 world-class restaurants and bars. It also offers a bevy of entertainment, nightlife, pools and health and wellness amenities.

A masterpiece 20 years in the making, Fontainebleau Las Vegas stands tall with its alluring blue light exterior, thoughtfully lit interior and robust electrical and low-­voltage infrastructure—all installed and  tested by Las Vegas-based electrical contractors Bombard Electric and ANS Electric.

Electrical infrastructure excellence

Fontainebleau Las Vegas is located on the northern end of the strip, neighboring the multibillion-dollar Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall expansion.

“Beginning in the mid-2000s, we installed the original electrical infrastructure within the hotel’s tower and did some work in the casino,” said Ken Kefalas, president of Bombard Electric. The full-service commercial and industrial electrical contracting firm, founded in 1981, has been involved in the landmark project from its inception.

“Construction was halted following the global financial crisis, though our team continued to maintain the power and fire alarm systems, as required by the county,” he said.

With the project resurrected in 2021 by Fontainebleau Development in partnership with Koch Real Estate Investments, “Bombard Electric got reinvolved in late 2021 through general contractor WA Richardson Builders and began a two-year effort to complete work on the facility and ready it for its grand opening on Dec. 13, 2023,” Kefalas said.

According to Brent Steeler, project manager at Bombard Electric, the magnitude of their job was significant.

“We did a complete evaluation/inventory of the hotel’s massive power systems to determine what was either still on the project from years ago or missing and what still worked,” Steeler said. “Management-wise, it was by far the most complex power single line we’ve ever done.”

“We were also responsible for installing all of the lighting, controls and related switches and other components across the facility’s more than 9 million square feet,” he said. “This included the Fontainebleau’s 7,000-space parking garage, convention and ballroom space, and the resort’s casino, spa, nightclub, theater and elevated pool deck as well as its 4 million-square-foot tower, which encompassed corridors, guest rooms and suites.”

Though Bombard Electric had installed much of the electrical infrastructure years earlier, Kefalas said that the halt in development presented his team with some unexpected challenges. Although the structure was sound and ready for completion, it turned into one of the most unique and demanding projects they’ve undertaken.

“While the power was already in place in the tower, for instance, which avoided our need to change switchgear, the building management systems needed to be changed because they’d become outdated over the years,” Kefalas said. 

“In addition, code changes over time required the lighting fixtures to be more energy-efficient and for the lighting design to also incorporate lighting controls and motion detectors,” he said. “As a result, all of the lighting fixtures originally specified on the job years ago were changed to LED technology and their locations were all different.”

Starting in 2022, Kefalas said, “we had to ramp up our crew quickly because so much of the building was already 70% completed, and, due to the structure being largely in place, that ramp-up of manpower was unlike any other project we’d ever experienced. 

“While we started with an initial team of 10 to 15 crew members to get settled on the job and order material, we got up to our peak of 500 to 600 crew members (sourced largely from IBEW Local 357) really fast and plateaued there for quite a while,” he said.

“The fast pace of this project was challenging because the structure was up and everything opened up at the same time, so this project was ‘ready to go’ much faster than other projects we’ve worked on,” Steeler said, who added that Bombard Electric still has 20 to 30 team members on the job. “Our safety team addressed the compressed work schedule by having safety items on hand for last-minute requests, staying involved with the foremen to remind them about special task JSAs and establishing a ‘known’ presence with the workers so that they felt open to talk with safety team members about any concerns they had.”

“We take our hat off to project managers Terry Bombard and Brent Steeler as well as Mike Gurule, superintendent of all labor,” Kefalas said. “They lived this project every day and were truly the stars of the show.”

 A low-voltage victory

“While Bombard Electric oversaw Fontainebleau Las Vegas’ power and lighting needs, we were responsible for the systems portion,” said Lou Gentile, managing partner at ANS Electric, which has expertise in everything from 9V/low-voltage to 128,000V power applications going into buildings.

“Like the Bombard Electric team, we were also brought into this project by WA Richardson Builders in late 2021/early 2022,” he said. “Normally when a contractor takes on low-voltage work, they install unfinished product, wiring and terminating. This project was very unique in that the owner asked us to supply the entire property’s surveillance system, access control, audiovisual systems, Wi-Fi, cellular distributed antenna system and emergency responder as well as to commission all of these things, and we took care of it.”

Gentile noted that more than 4,500 cameras were installed throughout Fontainebleau Las Vegas, which was “the most we’d ever taken on at one time,” he said. At the height of the project, it involved up to 485 crew members working on systems everywhere from the parking garage to the convention space, retail areas and tower.

While there was a great deal of work to be done in a short time, “all of our general foremen met every week to discuss what was going on so that we understood the situation on the ground and could plan for it,” Gentile said. “They’re an awesome group of professionals and I can’t compliment them enough on what we were able to achieve.”

“A total wow”

Completed in time for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas grand opening celebration on Dec. 13, “the hotel was a total wow,” Kefalas said. 

He attended the celebration with such celebrities as Justin Timberlake, Tom Brady, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Wahlberg, Paul Anka, Cher, Kim Kardashian, Lenny Kravitz, Axl Rose, Tommy Hilfiger and more. 

“The lighting and decorative chandeliers we’d installed were just spectacular and everything looked so beautiful and elegant. All of the restaurants were serving food, there was lots of great entertainment, and the whole setting wowed a lot of people,” he said. “With its spacious and airy ambiance, Fontainebleau Las Vegas is as nice as the best hotels on the strip.”

Gentile couldn’t agree more regarding the hotel’s beauty and the project’s successful outcome.

“This project was a humbling experience and a testament to what can be achieved when a group of people get together and put a lot of thought into their efforts,” Gentile said, who noted that his firm still has almost 50 team members on-site overseeing finishing touches. 

“We partnered with a multitude of companies—including AV integrators, Wi-Fi specialists, security companies and more—to bring this project together, and we take a lot of pride in every one of those relationships. We’re excited to have been a part of this undertaking and to have gotten the chance to grow as a company in ways that many other contractors may never get to experience,” he said.

“I live 20 minutes away from the Las Vegas Strip and it’s a proud feeling to be part of something like this,” Kefalas said. 

“Other projects start from the ground up, but this was completely different and there will never be another project quite like it. Bombard Electric has worked on so many magnificent and iconic Las Vegas hotels, but this one really separated us from our competition,” he said.

Peter Arnell / ANS Electric / Bombard Electric