Casino Fires Architect After Guests Find Exit In Under An Hour
The brief asked for a floor that was “easy to navigate.” Management says it assumed the architect would understand it meant inward.
LAS VEGAS. The Juniper Grand Casino has dismissed the architect behind its $60 million floor renovation after a guest survey found that visitors were reaching the exit in an average of 52 minutes, down from four hours and ten minutes under the old layout.
Nadia Pruszynski, 46, said the brief had asked for a floor that was “bright and easy to navigate.” Her design used straight aisles, overhead signs and a single unbroken sightline from the slot floor to the front doors, which the casino’s management now refers to as “the incident.”
I asked what they meant by easy to navigate and they said, you know, easy. I thought they meant both ways.
Casino president Glen Haverford said the problem became clear within a week of the reopening, when staff noticed guests leaving in the middle of the afternoon, “awake, with money, and in some cases smiling.”
You could see the doors from the craps tables. You could see daylight. People were going out for lunch.
The casino has since put back its original carpet, a pattern of orange and purple medallions, and moved a bank of 340 slot machines into the main aisle. A spokesperson said the average time to exit now stands at three hours and fifty minutes and is rising.
Pruszynski has since been hired to redesign an airport.
