by Nico, tentimesone.com , 08.25.2010

While not quite the same as a 3-year-long exposure photo, a video that documents a two-and-a-half-year building project shortened down to 30 seconds is pretty amazing. I don’t know about you but I’m endlessly astounded at how massive projects like these happen, always trying to visualize the scope of the endeavor, in my head manufacturing the skyscrapers from groundbreaking to final antennae. And it appears I was right, it’s all very calculated and methodical. But still, it always seems so fast—not this fast.

The following video produced a team at the Las Vegas Sun, shows the entire creation of the MGM-Mirage CityCenter now on the strip in downtown Las Vegas. In case you were wondering, it was the most expensive privately funded construction project in U.S. history, more than $9 capital-B billion, and today exists as the single most expensive engineering project in the western-hemisphere.

If VIDEO box does not appear, click here.

Here are some more stats on this gargantu-huge project as culled from Vegas Today and Tomorrow:

The current inventory (with the respective architect) consists of:

• 4,004-room 61-story ARIA Resort & Casino (Cesar Pelli)
• 165,000-square-foot casino (Pelli)
• 400-room + 227 condos – Mandarin Oriental Hotel/Residences (Pedersen / Tihany)
• 400-room + 207 condos – The Harmon Hotel/Residences (Foster and Partners)
• 1543-unit Vdara Condo/Hotel tower (Rafael Viñoly)
• Twin, 337-unit luxury condo towers Veer (Helmut Jahn)
• 500,000-square-foot retail and entertainment space The Crystals Mall (Daniel Libeskind)
• $40 million worth of modern sculptures and installations by world famous artists
• 225,000 square feet of convention and meeting space
• 900,000 square feet for back-of-house operations
• 2,000-seat theater
• 70,000-square-foot spa
• 7,500-car parking garage
• Fire station
• People movers (trams)
• On-site power plant