Caesers
By Tony Illia

Caesars Palace is expanding its Roman Empire in Las Vegas with a new $289 million, 949-room hotel tower and a $20 million Roman plaza.

Caesars Palace became an instant icon when it first appeared on the Las Vegas Strip in 1966. It opened with 680 rooms. It now has 2,400 rooms, and the latest addition will lift that total to 3,370 rooms.

Perini Building Co. of Phoenix, a unit of Framingham, Mass.-based Perini Corp., is the general contractor. The new 27-story, cast-in-place concrete tower faces Flamingo Road along the south perimeter of Caesars' 80-acre property. Designed by Berman Walls and Associates, Las Vegas, the 355-ft.-tall structure is clad in EIFS paneling, themed with Roman column facades. KHS&S Contractors of Tampa, Fla., is installing the exterior panels.

The building sits atop an 88-ft.-wide, 438-ft.-long foundation trench filled with 8-ft.-thick concrete reinforced by 515 tons of steel rebar. Supplier Nevada Ready Mix Corp. of Las Vegas, mobilized 130 trucks and 191 people to place 11,730- cu. yds. of foundation concrete in a 16.5 -hour marathon earlier this year.

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Martin & Peltyn Inc. of Las Vegas is the structural engineer.

The narrow, heavily congested site has caused some problems, said Mike Nunn, Perini's project manager. The building is less than 30- ft. away from Flamingo Road, with major power lines nearby and a fully operating resort next door. That means there is little room for storage or staging building materials.

Despite this, progress on the tower is moving at a rate of one floor every week. It's expected to top-off by October. Perini is using a hanger system on each 24-sq.-in. column that enables minimal shoring for each post-tensioned floor slab and allows Perini to add floors quickly. The firm has two hammerhead tower cranes onsite that help maneuver materials into place.

The new hotel tower will consist of 23 three-bay suites (2,470 -sq. -ft. each), six two-bay suites (1,470 -sq. -ft.), 23 1.5-bay suites (1,060 -sq. -ft.), and 874 petite suites (650 to 760 -sq. -ft.).

The guestrooms will have 9-ft.-tall ceilings and high-end features such as spa tubs. The tower's top floor will be left unfinished. It could be developed at a later date and increase the property's total room count.

"With annual hotel occupancy averaging more than 94 percent during the past five years and record cash room rates reported for six out of the last eight months, Caesars Palace clearly has room to grow," Mark Juliano, the resort's president, said in a statement. "The new tower will enable us to capture significantly more hotel business, both from meetings and conventions, as well as independent travelers."

The tower addition will have a VIP Lounge, wedding chapels, and new retail and dining facilities. A fourth large swimming pool will also be built to accommodate the expansion, and there will be a 50,000-sq.-ft., 20-ft.-tall low-rise structure connecting the new south tower to the main Caesars entrance. The steel-framed structure will serve as a registration area for the tower guests.

Perini is also building a 125,000-sq.-ft. open-air Roman Plaza at the northwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road. It features a decorative stained concrete floor pattern, a canopied bar and 360-seat indoor/outdoor Italian restaurant.

There will also be merchandise kiosks and 55-ft.-tall colonnades topped with statues of trumpeting angels. New water fountain features will mark the entrances into the plaza area.

"With the completion of our new attractions, including the new luxury hotel tower, we will create a virtually new resort," Wallace R. Barr, president and chief executive officer of Caesars Entertainment Inc., owner of Caesars Palace, said in a statement.

Project manager Nunn said there will be 500 tradesmen onsite during the height of construction activity. In addition, the new and expanded facilities are expected to create 500 to 600 new jobs at Caesars Palace.
The Roman plaza will open this month followed by the south hotel tower in fall 2005.

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