Venue: Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Town: Nevada, US

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) performing arts center located at Symphony Park in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Consisting of three theaters in two buildings, the performing arts center is designed in the Neo Art Deco style. The architectural style was chosen by David M. Schwarz to echo the design elements of the Hoover Dam, just 30 miles (48 km) to the southeast. It also shares design features with the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas. The center features a 17-story carillon tower containing 47 bells and is the first performing arts center in the nation to be Gold LEED certified. Groundbreaking for the $470 million complex began on May 26, 2009, and it opened on March 10, 2012. The Smith Center features international music, and dance companies and is the home of the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Nevada Ballet Theatre. The center is under the leadership of President and CEO Myron Martin. Prior to The Smith Center's opening, Las Vegas was one of the largest cities in the country without a performing arts center. Some highly customized production shows and venues have long existed at various resorts on the Las Vegas Strip but none were geared towards the variety of performances that a stand-alone center would provide, such as that required for touring Broadway productions or major symphony orchestras. A smaller performing arts venue at the University of Nevada Las Vegas was inadequate for these purposes. Plans were initially conceived for a new center around 1994. The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation made a donation of $150 million in 2005, the second largest donation to performing arts in United States history. A car rental fee was also initiated by Clark County and the State of Nevada to repay bonds of $105 million. These two factors together moved the public-private project towards construction. The building was named after Fred and Mary Smith, the chairman of the Reynolds Foundation and his wife, as the largest