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The big just keep getting bigger in Las Vegas with the latest expansion of Caesars Palace Convention Center.
Caesars Palace recently expanded its Romanesque empire on the Las Vegas Strip with, help from Penta Building Group. The local general contractor finished a $56 million, four-level convention center addition to the west end of the resort's Palace Tower convention area in July.
"With annual hotel occupancy averaging more than 94 percent during the past five years, Caesars Palace clearly has room to grow," said Mark Juliano, the resort's president. "[This] will enable us to capture significantly more hotel business, both from meetings and conventions, as well as independent travelers. That will drive incremental revenue from gaming and non-gaming venues alike."
The 20-month project entailed demolition of two small buildings at the 70,000-sq.-ft. site as well as excavation and replacement of a 200-ft.-long, 20-ft.-diameter section of underground storm culvert. Penta also had to relocate the resort's employee dropoff and pickup area. The narrow, confined area additionally meant staging 3,400 tons of steel along Frank Sinatra Drive and then assembling structural girders onsite. SME Steel Contractors of West Jordan, Utah, was the steel supplier/erector.
"The project saw 230 tradesmen onsite during the height of construction activity, with roughly 20 subcontractors and suppliers," said Glen Maxwell, Penta's project manager. The firm self-performed the concrete and light demolition work.
The 250,000-sq.-ft. building rests atop a foundation of 70 drilled pilings, averaging 40-ft.-deep and 3-ft. in diameter, with grade beams tying the pile caps together. The steel-framed, EIFS-clad structure is elevated 17 ft. so vehicle and bus traffic can run underneath.
The third and fourth levels house convention and meeting room areas, bringing the Caesars Palace total to 240,000 sq.-ft. The addition has 120,000 sq. ft of ballroom space, which can be divided into junior ballrooms and meeting rooms. It has a 4,271 person capacity. There is also pre-function space with expanded pantries and banquet kitchen facilities.
Floors have been heavily engineered to enable 150-ft-wide clear spans, enabling a variety of meeting space configurations. In fact, the concrete-over-metal decking floors are strong enough to drive a fire truck over them. Las Vegas-based Martin & Peltyn Inc. was the structural engineer.
The center's interior matches the look and feel of the existing convention area with marble floors and carpet inlay as well as matching fixtures and wall coverings. There are several large glass chandeliers and classical statuary, along with framed prints of Roman architecture. KGA Architecture of Las Vegas was the architect.
The addition utilizes existing Palace Tower support services, including warehouse loading docks, storage facilities, and convention loading elevators. Despite this, six escalators and two elevators were added to the new space along with a rooftop mechanical penthouse housing 12 air handlers. Houston-based Fisk Electric Corp. did the electrical work and Hansen Mechanical, a unit of EMCOR Group, Inc., Norwalk, Conn., did the mechanical work.
The resort's central plant underwent a $12 million expansion, under a separate contract with Penta, adding two new boilers, two chillers and distribution piping to service the expanded convention center and the new Augustus hotel tower.
The convention center's second-level was initially planned as shell space to be finished at a later time. One year into construction, however, Caesars decided to turn the floor into its new corporate headquarters. The resort operator canceled its office lease and notified Penta that the space needed to be built-out and ready for occupancy by May 15, 2005, or two months before the convention center's scheduled completion. Penta fast tracked life safety systems and readied the floor for 250 Caesars employees with workstations, restrooms, conference centers, and pantry and storage areas. The second level, designed by Bergman, Walls & Associates of Las Vegas, added $7 million to the total project cost.
Penta next had to demolish and tie into Palace Tower's existing convention center, while minimizing disruptions to ongoing events. The new space was scheduled to host a convention as per its original schedule, despite having more work added to the project. Yet both the convention center and its second floor offices opened on-time.
Key Players
Owner:
Caesars Entertainment Inc.
Architect:
KGA Architects
General Contractor:
The Penta Building Group
Structural Engineer:
Martin & Peltyn
MEP Engineer:
JBA Consulting Engineers
Electrical:
Fisk Electric Corp.
Mechanical:
Hansen Mechanical, a unit of EMCOR Group
Steel:
SME Steel Contractors
Concrete:
The Penta Building Group
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