Back to the River

Gila River opens newest Wild Horse Pass Property

The $200-million Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino opens this month south of Phoenix.

By Scott Blair

Improving upon the adage “riverfront property,” Gila River Indian Community’s newest property adds frontages to not one but two major freeways.

The $200-million Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino has staked out a prime location near where Interstate 10 and Loop 202 cross near Ahwatukee, a Phoenix suburb.

The 10-story hotel tower at Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino hopes to draw the attention of visitors with two glowing blue ‘swooshes’ that represent water and the river that is central to the tribal community’s culture. (Photo courtesy Kitchell)

The property, designed by the Phoenix office of JCJ Architecture, will replace the 15-year-old Gila River Casino, which is nearly 2 mi from the freeway within the Gila River Indian Community near the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort.

“Our customers struggled to find the existing casino because they have to wind their way down to our facility,” says Arlene Alleman, corporate director of marketing with Gila River Gaming Enterprises. “Now we are going to be right off the I-10. As soon as you exit off Wild Horse Pass Boulevard, it basically drops you off right at our front door.”

The property will also one day front the South Mountain Freeway bypass, if that highway is built as planned by Arizona’s Dept. of Transportation.

The coming freeway was one of the considerations early in the master planning in 2005 for the new project, says Michael Dollin, principal and owner of Urban Earth Design of Phoenix, which created both the master plan and the landscape design for the project.

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Through a series of false starts, construction with current general contractor Kitchell of Phoenix didn’t get started until April 2008. Two other contractors had worked on the project for approximately six months each before failing to reach terms with the owner.

“About 13 months had passed from the time they originally wanted to start the project before we were contacted to see if we were interested in doing it,” says Bruce Taylor, Kitchell’s project director. While rough grading and excavation for a 170-ft tunnel (to connect the future casino’s kitchen with the hotel’s service elevators) had taken place, not much else had been done during those months, Taylor says.

“Because of the time that went by and the owner wanting to get this project completed as fast as possible, we put together a schedule of what we thought we could accomplish in the first 90 days of the project while we were negotiating the final contract,” Taylor says.

The list included a three-level, 800-space precast garage, the casino’s structural steel and the hotel’s concrete structure, all portions of the project that had been designed sufficiently for Kitchell to sub-bid and begin procurement.

With the initial $17-million contract in hand, work proceeded through the 90 days and into the summer until the full $170-million construction cost contract was agreed upon.

The rotunda roof dome is made of specially fabricated trusses and decking, plus a special copper-brown 60-mil PVC membrane that will resemble a metal standing-seam roof when completed. (Photo courtesy Kitchell)

“We came under contract in September, and we had our topping-out ceremony on Oct. 28,” Taylor says.

The 10-story hotel structure will house 242 rooms and suites plus conference facilities and a pool and health club. The project features 25,911 cu yds of concrete with cast-in-place for shear walls, columns and beams and post-tensioned for slabs.

Due to concrete and steel prices during the permitting process, Phoenix-based structural engineer Caruso Turley Scott collaborated with Kitchell and Phoenix-based concrete subcontractor Suntec Concrete to change the slab design from a 6.5-in. to a 7-in. slab, thereby reducing steel reinforcement and post-tensioned cable needs, according to Paul Scott, P.E., principal in charge with Caruso Turley Scott.

“The result was a structural slab system fine-tuned to the changing economics of the construction market in real time,” he adds.

Hotel rooms will feature granite countertops, crown molding, flat-screen televisions and iPod docking stations, “amenities that appeal to a broad audience,” Alleman says. It is expected that 90% of patrons will come from the Phoenix area.

The tribe will own and operate the hotel. The nearby Sheraton will continue to serve business and resort customers.

“The casino/hotel will be run much like the casino/hotels in Las Vegas,” Alleman says, with most rooms for gamers.

The 100,000-sq-ft casino will feature more than 1,000 slot machines, 71 table games and 12,000 sq ft of meeting space. A host of lounges, restaurants and retailshops will tempt patrons away from gaming. The casino also houses a 1,400-seat entertainment venue, which has scheduled upcoming concerts with LeAnn Rimes and Jay Leno.

“One of the interesting elements within the casino are castellated beams, where you take an I-beam and jigsaw it in the middle and expand it so you use the same amount of steel to make twice as deep of a beam,” Taylor says. “This allows a beam that weighs the same to make larger spans, from 90 to 120 ft.”

The castellated beams serve double-duty because one of the project’s two massive air-handling units, each with a 90- by 140-ft footprint, sits atop the casino. Taylor says the unit blows down through encased columns into a raised computer floor air-distribution system, where air gently emits from floor vents and pushes the ubiquitous cigarette smoke upwards and away from patrons.

The skin mixes EIFS in various colors, metal wall panels and glass curtain walls. The list of high-end interior finishes includes eight types of glass, over 30 types of ceramic tile, 38 carpeting types and 20 different wall coverings, including ample unique woodwork.

A three-story rotunda features a chandelier-like art piece with crystals that reflect light from a skylight above to create water-droplet-like reflections. Underneath sits a 20-ft-tall bronze sculpture of a wild horse. “A majority of the artwork comes directly from the tribe,” Alleman says. “Incorporating their culture was important.”

Exterior landscaping stays true to the native landscapes, with a palette and style that reflects the river-centric heritage of the community, Dollin says. A water feature representing the Gila River flows throughout the project, from the base of the parking structure into the casino. Blue lights and neon ‘swooshes’ atop the building help to sell the water metaphor.

As with many tribal projects, the construction team has strived to involve the community as much as possible. “We currently have 674 construction workers on our day shift and 190 are Native American, which is close to 30%,” Taylor says.

Key Players

Owner: Gila River Indian Community
Architect: JCJ Architecture
General Contractor: Kitchell
Structural Engineer: Caruso Turley Scott
Master Plan/Landscape: Urban Earth Design
Subcontractors: Suntec Concrete; Tpac; Bergelectric; Interstate Mechanical Corp.; AmFab Inc.; Performance Contractors Inc.; Western Millwork; Dillon Osborn JV; Trimark; Trainor Glass; Foley Tile

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