How to wrap a building

By Megan Messerly

Monday, Jan. 11, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Think wrapping a present is hard? Try wrapping a building.

That’s exactly what owners of the unfinished Fontainebleau have to do, after the Clark County Zoning Commission voted in November to require that an unfinished part of the building, marred by rusty building panels, be covered up by a paint-and-fabric building wrap.

Resort officials were given 90 days to submit designs, then will have six months to wrap the building 100 feet from ground level up on the west side, facing Las Vegas Boulevard.

Though the resort recently was listed for sale, County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani said owners will have to comply with the wrap regardless. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn bought the bankrupt project five years ago for about $150 million and has been sitting on it since.

Building wraps are common on the Strip; they hover over most corners. Most of the wraps are hung for advertising purposes.

Elite Media, a local advertising company, has wrapped many of the valley’s buildings. In 2007, the company draped a Dwyane Wade T-mobile advertisement on the north face of Mandalay Bay. Wade’s ear alone was five stories tall.

It’s too early to know what the Fontainebleau’s covering will look like, but Elite Media President Chad McCowell — who has been wrapping buildings for 15 years — shared some insight about what it’s like wrapping a building on the Strip.

Step 1: Getting approval

Building wraps on the Strip are vetted by the Clark County Zoning Commission. There are no specific guidelines for what commission members approve or deny; approval is discretionary and depends on what the wrap will look like and where it will be placed. The commission can and does put restrictions on wraps, including whether they can contain advertising.

In Las Vegas, commercial property owners can wrap their buildings as long as they undergo a sign review with the City Council every year and use the wrap to highlight a product or service offered in the building.

Step 2: Applying the wrap

Advertising agencies, design firms and building owners typically design wraps.

The artwork is designed digitally on a computer, just as art for a smaller sign would be, then is divided on a grid, usually into 4-foot-by-25-foot strips, to be printed.

A print shop prints each of the strips on a large format printer. The strips are printed either on mesh if they need to be seen through or on vinyl if they don’t. Vinyl gives a cleaner image.

Each strip essentially is a giant sticker with adhesive on the back, covered by paper.

Depending on the season and how long the wrap will remain up, the artwork can be printed on a more or less heavy-duty material. In the summer, the surface of buildings can heat to about 250 degrees.

To attach the strips, workers typically use window washing scaffolding to traverse the face of the building. They usually start at the upper left, working top to bottom, then left to right. Each sticker is numbered and corresponds to a numbered grid to ensure it’s placed in the correct spot.

Workers remove a small portion of the adhesive backing at a time and roll the strips down the face of the building, smoothing out bubbles with a scraper or their hands. Wrapping the entire side of a resort-sized building takes about a week to 10 days.

Step 3: Maintenance

The typical lifespan of a wrap is one year to 18 months. Wraps generally can stay up about a year without needing maintenance. After that, the wrap might experience some flagging, when the corners of the pieces start to peel up. Workers easily can pin the pieces back down with adhesive. Wraps also may fade after about six months.