Steel going up

I work in a convention center attached to a big hotel casino resort. I don’t like putting down the names of places, as I find Google is quite good at searching out random remarks and creating unexpected links, so you have to figure out where this is on your own (OK, I have already admitted it is Las Vegas). I’ve been working here for almost two years now, and living in Vegas for about five and a half years. When we first moved here the BHCR had a very large hole in the ground out on the corner that was destined to become five floors of parking underneath their new tower. I got to watch some construction work and am still impressed with how fast things can go when there is a lot of money behind a project.

I started working here after most of the tower was done. We go for lunchtime walks around the property, if the weather is nice that’s around the outside, if not so nice then around the inside. I sometimes take pictures on these walks, which then end up here. These show some of the steel construction of what is now the Jersey Boys Theater. There is lots of steel in the whole building, not just concrete piers and floors. Another new condo tower is going up right now, fifty stories stuck right between the others just a few feet off of Las Vegas Boulevard.

This big empty box is created from thin steel framing, foam panels and a thin layer of concrete. It was applied to the outside of the tower to give some more detail. Most of the pretty parts of new buildings are made this way, just shells.


A lot of steel went into even this small extension.



With lots of small cranes to lift it all up. You can see the bases of two of the big tall tower cranes in the background, which did reach all the way up over the top of the tower. This theater was put in last, as this was where all the big trucks pulled in for the tall cranes to lift stuff up to the tower as it went up.


But the end result on the inside is rather impressive, no? (this isn’t the theater built above, but the nearby atrium)