LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A Las Vegas company has mastered the art of bringing the great outdoors, inside. In this week's Nevada Built, 13 Action News anchor Todd Quinones show us a company that proves, art really does imitate life.
Fake plastic trees is no way to describe them. Even up close it's hard to believe they're not real.
In fact, chances are you've walked right by many of them in a local casino, restaurant or amusement park, and didn't notice.
DON'T NOTICE
"We're thrilled when people don't notice us," says Ira Falk, CEO of PlantWorks.
They love to mimic the ordinary and dazzle with the extraordinary like their creation at Catch restaurant inside the Aria.
"We can build anything from an actual reproduction of Mother Nature's finest to something that's a complete wild part of your wild imagination," says Falk.
Welders, painters, sculptors, and fabricators meticulously recreating the finest of details. The result often mystifying.
"We're also really happy when people go, Look at that, isn't it beautiful?" says Falk.
And sometimes their work serves a practical reason like security at airports.
"Where we embed surveillance cameras and microphones in some of our products," says Falk.
PlantWorks has clients across the country. The company is headquartered in Southern California, but some of their best work is made right here at this facility near Valley View and Russell. Ira calls Las Vegas a place of innovators.
LEADS IN DESIGN
"You think about Las Vegas leads in design, it's where everything happens first. So we're very excited to be part of that, part of that creation," says Falk.
Creating artificial horticulture isn't all roses. They too are fighting inflation and supply chain issues.
"I used to ship a fifty-three-foot truck from here to New York for five six seven thousand dollars, and now those numbers have almost doubled," says Falk.
Today 45 people work for the company, which is gearing up for a major expansion.
"We're going to be doubling the size of this facility in the next 10 or 12 months and we're doubling the number of employees who work here," says Falk.
And it turns out some parts of these trees are real and then preserved, earning the label a pickled palm.
