Mass transit for high-rollers? With attractive, pedestrian-friendly stations, themed cars, and the smallest footprint of any elevated transit system, even the most discriminating visitors to Las Vegas can find a reason to love the strip's sleek, zippy monorail. Even better, the stations and connectors are full of high-design and high-tech. A highlight is the station at MGM Grand, the hotel/casino that claims status as one of the monorail's founders. With clerestory windows, stainless steel finishes, a media wall, and wood-finish acoustical panels by Hunter Douglas Contract, the passageway merges cool modernism with Vegas-style showmanship.
 
Considering its role as the first booster of the monorail, MGM wanted its monorail station access to be as memorable and swanky as its 5,000-room hotel and casino. The problem was that the station was only reachable from facilities by outdoor sidewalks, says Thomas A. Wucherer AIA, principal of Las Vegas-based YWS Architects. The route caused bottlenecks on busy weekend nights.
 
The new connector would offer a comfortable indoor pathway threading its way to two station entrances, improving access and the total MGM Grand experience. "We wanted it be light and airy, so we planned it with lots of glass as well as spaces allowing the owner to advertise their property and shows," says Wucherer of the 7,100-square-foot project, which officially opened in the summer of 2004. "We collaborated with interior designer ABA Avery Brooks & Associates to craft a high-tech, modern transportation look, augmenting the finishes with colored lighting to create a fanciful transition space."
 
According to designers at ABA, the station's arrival-and-departure vestibule was carved out of a sliver of space between two curved concrete monorail beams. Areas with low ceilings opened up to contrasting two-story rectangular and curved volumes, some preceded by a series of sharp angular turns. The design enhances the theatricality of the sequence, creating an expectation of entertainment and anticipation by means of colorful backlit walls and the softly curved linear wood-finish panels by Hunter Douglas.
 
The wood-finish panels also provide acoustic treatment -- though hidden to the eye -- to reduce reverberation and improve audibility in the spaces, says Paul Riddle, principal of Hunter Douglas' local partner, Creative West Inc. And though originally conceived for ceiling applications, the acoustical panel profiles mainly cover walls in this application, extending from the ticketing area through two levels of escalators. The effect lends both spatial continuity and a rich materiality reminiscent of millwork.
 
The look and feel of wood became a highlight of the circulation route, say designers at ABA. "From the moment you exit the train station proper, you descend via escalators into a voluminous, curved, sensuous two-story space," a firm representative said. "One side is clad in linear wood paneling, contrasted by an expansive, gray-tone storefront wall." Heading down the escalator, visitors are greeted by the huge billboard array of video screens highlighting MGM's many entertainment venues, set against a bold red backdrop that directs visitors toward the color-infused, high-tech-looking vestibule area. Graphics walls and backlit ceilings, set against a floor of geometrically patterned terrazzo, draw visitors closer to the entrance to MGM StudioWalk. Outside, a gateway of cantilevered steel wings delivers a space-age riff on a Parisian Metro entrance.
 
The project earned the team several awards, including one from Hospitality Design magazine for collaboration among the design firms. No ordinary arrival sequence, this new connector is as enticing as it is efficient. Both qualities will prove critical to MGM Grand as monorail ridership increases.
 
In fact, the monorail itself began in 1993 as an effort to connect MGM Grand with Bally's Hotel, a concept that blossomed into a drive to link as many destinations along the Las Vegas strip as possible. Still privately owned, the elevated Las Vegas Monorail whisks travelers along in themed cars from one end of the strip to the other in about 15 minutes, dropping them off in attractive, pedestrian-friendly stations. Just as the casinos and hotels compete to draw the eye of tourists and gamblers, so do the owners of the stations press to make them remarkable and memorable.
 
"Once people discover the monorail, they find it has huge advantages," says Wucherer. "Plans are to extend it to the airport, so it's going to become even more important."