Hurried hotel
Vinton complex dashes toward December completion

By Karla Wall

Despite a hot and rainy Gulf Coast summer, construction of a $26.5 million hotel and event center at Delta Downs Racetrack and Casino in Vinton should be completed in late December.

Adverse weather conditions are nothing new for Yates Construction of Philadelphia, Miss., which has built and renovated several casinos along the coast and is accustomed to heat and rain.

"It's important for us to communicate daily," said project manager Stephen Harrell. "We have to maintain communication and coordination with the subcontractors to make sure they know what's expected of them."

The fast-tracked project requires a 24/7 schedule, with two 10-hour or three eight-hour shifts and 200 workers, representing about 12 subcontractors. Separate superintendents oversee each shift.

advertisement

Timely material deliveries are also important in such a fast-paced construction environment, Harrell said. Numerous truckloads of concrete block, precast and ready-mix concrete and steel are delivered to the site daily. To ensure safe delivery of materials, existing topsoils were replaced with compactable fill to accommodate heavy machinery and delivery trucks.

The current phase, which began construction in mid-April, requires construction of a new 10-floor hotel, food court and event center. The first two phases of the project, begun in September 2003 and finished this summer, involved renovations to the interior of the existing casino area, the addition of gaming space, a player's club area, a promenade, new buffet area and glass-and-steel entrance to the gaming area.

Included in the first two phases were the repositioning of the escalators and the re-designing of the HVAC and lighting systems in the gaming area. The main entrance to the casino was also moved and the cargo road entrance was refurbished.

With so many employees working in the high-stress environment of a fast-tracked project amid heavy-duty machinery and delivery vehicles, safety is paramount, Harrell said.

"We want to be sure that the men and women who say goodbye to their families in the morning go home to say hello to them in the evening," he added.

To that end, all fill dirt is leveled at the site to ensure stability of cranes, constant communication is maintained between machinery operators and workers, and the site is tidied up each evening to ensure a safe site for the next shift.

When the hotel and event center project broke ground, a small amount of site clearing was followed by the placement of clay silt hauled from a borrow pit in Vinton. Precast concrete piles were then driven to a depth of 73 ft.

After pile caps were constructed, columns were formed and poured-in-place to support the second through ninth floors and a penthouse level.

"The first two floor levels were built using structural steel reinforcement and about 3,400 cu. yds. of 4,000-psi, poured-in-place concrete," Harrell said. "Floors on the third through 10th levels were constructed with 4-ft.-wide precast hollow-core concrete planks anchored to block walls with structural steel and concrete fill."

The hollow-core slabs measure 12 to 16 in. thick, said Jerry Duncan, field manager with supplier CoreSlab of Oklahoma City. More than 200 truckloads of the rectangular slabs will be delivered to the site by the project's finish.

"The slabs are poured and tensioned at our manufacturing facility in Georgia," Duncan said. "The planks are arranged in a horizontal position, grouted and filled to create a continuous slab."

About 4,300 cu. yds. of concrete will be used for the total project, said Dan Correll with civil contractor Wright Construction of Memphis. The contractor is utilizing a Versa-Form shoring system to form the walls, while the structural deck is formed with plywood.

The exterior walls of the hotel tower will consist of metal studs, interior finish materials, insulation and an Exterior Finish Insulation System.

The project's electrical system involves a challenging vertical rise installation, said Yates project engineer Tony Bourgeois.

"We had to 'rough in' the wiring while at the same time constructing the structural walls and floor assemblies so that the active 'hot' electrical service work could be performed on the floors below," Bourgeois said.

Chillers for the HVAC system will be installed at grade, with piping routed below grade to designated mechanical rooms.

The four-pipe system will consist of an air-cooled chiller system with hydraulic heating, said Reggie Barnes, project manager with Mechanical Construction Co. of New Orleans.

"The main chiller will be located along with the boiler plant adjacent to the main tower of the hotel complex, with cooling and heating water routed underground to the facility," Barnes said. Vertical fan-coil units will be installed in each room.

MCC is also responsible for installing the plumbing system in the new complex, as well as four domestic water heaters with hot-water return systems. The heaters will be located on the first floor and will serve the hotel's low-rise and tower.

The event center will consist of a 14,400-sq.-ft. pre-engineered metal building manufactured by NuCor of Terrell, Texas, and installed by H & H Metal of Sulphur. The building, constructed of 24-gauge metal walls, will be delivered to the site and erected this month, said H & H estimator Mike Leger.

The building will be delivered to the site using about six trucks and will be erected by crane and bolted together or welded on-site, Leger added.

Harrell said the key to the successful completion of such a fast-paced, high-tension project involving so many subcontractors at once is planning and coordination.

"Everything is planned meticulously months before the work even begins," he added. "Schedules are pre-established and are built on common production practices.

"We've built this project many times over on paper and in our minds before work ever starts."

Useful Source:

For more information about Delta Downs' expansion plans, go to: http://www.deltadowns.com/site/newscasino/detail.cfm?ID=14