This LEED-Gold project added two separate mezzanines to an existing 300,000-sq-ft building, plus an addition for the bulk storage of raw materials for manufacturing. The project also included a retail area, corporate training and board rooms, offices and a lab.

Caesars’ empire will soon grow a little larger. Caesars Palace, the Las Vegas Strip resort-casino, will open a $375-million, 668-room hotel tower addition on January 2, 2012. The project shell was completed two years ago, but the interior was mothballed due to reduced visitor demand. Photo courtesy Caesars Entertainment The shell for the 23-story Octavius Tower was completed two years ago, but the interior build-out was placed on hold until tourism levels rebounded. Photo courtesy Caesars Entertainment The Octavius Tower features 668 rooms designed by KNA Design, Los Angeles.  The joint venture of Marnell Corrao Association, Las Vegas, and Keating

Specialty contractors, whether steel or electrical or masonry, struggled through another year of steep revenue declines in the Southwest. The top 80 firms saw the value of work performed in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico drop 28% to $2.5 billion in 2010, compared with $3.4 billion in the previous year. And that was just the firms that were willing to report revenue—many chose not to, leading to the lowest participation for this survey in more than a decade. Arizona subcontractor revenue tumbled 28% to $1.4 billion in 2010, but it was Nevada that took the biggest blow, dropping below $1

Southern Nevada's busiest thoroughfare, Interstate 15, sees more than 200,000 vehicles a day and is plagued by gridlock and accidents. Photo courtesy of Las Vegas Paving Corp. The project includes a total of 26 bridge segments to help alleviate traffic snarls and improve safety. Design-build contractor Las Vegas Paving Corp. began work in late 2009 on a solution: a $246.5-million widening of I-15 South between Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., Pasadena, Calif., performed design.The project is being underwritten by the Las Vegas Convention Visitors Authority, the public-private entity charged with bringing more visitors to town

A vocal group of local residents has spurred a debate over the route of a new, seven-mile stretch of road in north Phoenix being built to access an area of Sonoran Desert preserve. Opponents claim the new thoroughfare will draw unwanted traffic to a quiet neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Haydon Building Corp. Three traffic bridges and 10 steel truss pedestrian bridges are included in the project. Bridges over normally dry washes are built to withstand flash floods. The Phoenix City Council on June 14 placed construction of the contentious west third of the project on temporary hold, pending mediation. Work

A dramatic pedestrian bridge under construction across Tempe Town Lake will soon connect the shores of the 220-acre lake's west end near the Tempe Center for the Arts.  The 912-ft-long bridge will open to foot traffic in late August. Photo by James M. Doyle Crews placed the first of four 228-ft-long steel arch sections, each weighing in at 165,000 lbs, in mid-May. Photo by James M. Doyle Workers prepare the deck steel along the arch spans already in place while another span is readied for hoisting in the background. Related Links: Click here to view a video of the first steel arch

Spring is in the air for two firms selected to construct a new spring training and western headquarters facility for the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team in Mesa, Ariz. Populous, Kansas City, Mo., beat out nine competing firms to win the design contract, while Hunt Construction Group, Scottsdale, Ariz., bested eight others for the general contractor job. Image courtesy City of Mesa Conceptual drawings show possible layouts for the Cubs' new spring home. Image courtesy City of Mesa The new spring training venue pictured here in a concept drawing will replace the Cubs' existing facility in Mesa, Hohokam Park.

Article toolbar Because laboratory buildings can consume up to 10 times more energy than office buildings, Arizona State University needed efficient systems to achieve its sustainability goals for the new seven-story Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV on its Tempe, Ariz., campus. Photo: Sundt Construction Stout Building Nearly 18,000 cubic yards of concrete have been placed in the seven-story ISTB IV building to date. Science lab experiments will require a building with low vibration transfer. Using strategies such as variable exhaust and intelligent sensors, the structure, now under construction, is modeled to use 41% less energy than a typical research

Article toolbar Solar module manufacturer First Solar Inc., Tempe, Ariz., has selected Mesa, Ariz. as the site of a new fabrication plant. The $300-million first phase is scheduled to break ground later this year, with operations beginning third quarter 2012. Photo courtesy First Solar The plant will produce 250 MW of thin-film photovoltaic modules per year, to be used in numerous solar generating facilities throughout the world. Photo courtesy First Solar First Solar�s manufacturing plant in Mesa will have a 3-MW rooftop solar array to generate power, similar to this one atop the company�s Perrysburg, Ohio plant. Photo courtesy First

Article toolbar The building teams of the largest 25 project starts in 2010 moved forward during the height of one of the worst recessions to hit the U.S. The Southwest was especially hard hit, as the total value of the largest starts makes clear. The value of projects on the list in 2008 was $14.8 billion; in 2010 it was only $2.9 billion. Photo Courtesy Of Visions In Photography Public Work Publicly funded projects dominate the Top Starts list, from the $84.7-million Santan Freeway design-build project in Chandler and Gilbert. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?