VAA is providing civil and structural services for the 300,000 square foot addition to a casino expanding it to a four-star quality family-destination resort housing 200 guest rooms and ten luxury suites. The facility will also have conference rooms and banquet facilities with break-out and executive meeting rooms containing state-of the-art graphics and telecommunication capabilities with back of house operations to support the hotel and public spaces.
Other amenities include an indoor/outdoor pool, arcade, childcare center, indoor and outdoor spas, upscale and specialty restaurant spaces, café, retail space for the Pueblo Gift Shop as well as three leased tenant spaces, an entry porte cochere and parking including capacity for 30 tour bus spaces. The main entrance of the facility has a large 100 foot atrium space, providing a central focus from both the inside and outside of the building.
The Atrium: The atrium exterior skin creates a feather pattern of glass and structural steel tube space frames running 100 feet into the air blazed on all four sloping sides intersecting the building on two sides. The atrium is enhanced with fountains and a glass elevator. This iconic structure can be seen from as far away as six to seven miles across the Rio Grande. Many of the amenities in the resort complex incorporate iconic architecture utilizing unique structural design.
The Outdoor Spa: The first of these structures is the outdoor spa; this iconic structure is in the shape of a pot. It was a very intricate structural design challenge with several different structural shapes and materials. In plan, the structure consists of eighteen 20° segments to make a 360° circle. Each of those segments is supported and formed by a glue laminated double curved rib to create the outside shape of the pot. The entire shape is surrounded by five structural steel rings acting as barrel hoops and stabilizing the form. A crimped and curved light gauge metal stud and stucco system placed in the 18 double-curved three dimensional wedges create the exterior of the shell.
The Seminar Room: The seminar room is a 360° dome structure made of structural steel wide flange ribs placed in twelve 30° segments infilled with crimped and curved light gauge metal studs and a skin of laminated thin plywood sections, as with the outdoor spa, to create the dome roof. The roof is finished with standing seam metal roofing and at the interior the ceiling is a curved glass fiber reinforced gypsum perforated dome ceiling system.
The Porte Cochere: The Porte Cochere, is a drive up carport that is supported by four 140 foot long and sixty-six inch deep glue-laminated beams over steel columns buried in a stucco enclosure to support it against seismic loads. An overall timber appearance is used to match the look of the existing building and the V-shaped roof is suggestive of bird wings. The roof purlins are regularly spaced exposed glue laminated timber topped with three inch wood deck. The design challenge for this structure was to integrate it into the building while isolating from the building for movements caused by seismic events. The solution was to design it as an inverted pendulum with a large mass at the top, but cantilevered off the ground. In seismic events, it is capable is side-to-side movement while separated from the building roof by seismic joints, thus preventing seismic forces being transferred to the main building roof.
The hotel itself is post-tension flat plate construction with the exterior having an adobe appearance utilizing stucco. Timber-like accents, constructed of steel studs and stucco, were added under the roof to give it an adobe appearance and repeat the theme of the existing casino.
Civil Services: The civil team developed a site plan for the 30 acre site consisting of main entrance and drop off area, vehicular movements, three main parking areas totaling 866 stalls, valet lots and a valet entrance, a tour bus drop-off area, site roadways and circulation. The site was situated on a forty foot vertical terrain differential from one end to the other causing high water velocity, sheet flow velocity specifically. Our team utilized alternative storm water treatment methods on the site to control rate as well as storm water treatment. These methods included infiltration areas, permeable pavers and decorative rock treatment areas. The site also included the design of a more traditional storm sewer system consisting of manholes, catch basins, and piping systems. Additionally the civil team identified the need and provided the redesign of the existing sanitary sewer infrastructure to incorporate the added capacities necessary for a 200 room hotel as well as accommodation for future expansion. The entire project consisted of the design and construction of sanitary sewer, storm sewer, domestic water distribution, fire water distribution, site layout for gas distribution, relocation of existing water and storm sewer, and coordination of a sanitary lift station and associated force main.
Extensive grading and draining was involved with the entire site. The site has numerous retaining walls and site/privacy walls. Due to the unique architectural features of the building there are many curvilinear sidewalks and connections to the structures as well as different types of treatments. Attention to detail and precise coordination with other disciplines throughout the evolving site design was vital to the success of meeting the project schedule.
Meeting the Goal: The goal is to deliver a four-star resort destination to be opened by July 4, 2008. This provided our team with numerous unique design opportunities and a very compact design and construction schedule. In order to meet the schedule we prepared multiple bid packages. Our team also provided several value engineering ideas early during design and again during the construction phase to offer both schedule and budget relief.
This was an exciting project with many different materials and construction types and an architectural vision that required a large and diversified team. A fast track scheduling and construction process was utilized. Combining complexity and fast track requires a team with a high level of experience and flexibility to allow workable decisions to be made quickly. The architect was looking for us to be creative in our designs to bring their vision to life within budget and schedule. VAA needed to have the flexibility to be able to do work out of sequence in order to meet the contractor’s schedule, a process often not the most effective or efficient for the structural and civil designers. VAA is proud to be part of this team and see the great success of this project.
