Lou Ruvo Brain Institute Breaks Ground

Frank Gehry recently made his Vegas debut when the new $70-million, 67,000-square-foot Lou Ruvo Brain Institute broke ground in downtown. It marks Gehry's first building in Las Vegas. Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., Baltimore, is the general contractor for the 1.9-acre complex at Bonneville Avenue and Grand Central Parkway. The five-story building will feature 13 clinical, research and outpatient exam rooms for brain disease victims. Additional plans include a 9,000-square-foot banquet hall, flanked by a Wolfgang Puck cafe and catering kitchen on one side, and an interactive "Museum of the Mind" on the other. The institute plans to rent out its public areas at night and on weekends to help meet its operating expenses.

The building's banquet hall will be covered by a wildly curvy, undulating metal-and-glass trellis reaching up to 75-foot-tall, while the main entrance will be made up of stacked building blocks separated by glass enclosed spaces. The contrast suggests the dual functions of the brain, simultaneously ordered and chaotic, structured and imaginative. The project is funded by the Las Vegas-based nonprofit Keep Memory Alive Foundation for brain disease research, founded by Larry Ruvo, Nevada's senior managing director for Southern Wine and Spirits. The building is named after Ruvo's father, who died of Alzheimer's. The institute is scheduled to open in late 2008.