New Casino and Hotel

Elegantly designed and styled to reflect local flavor, the casino offers a well-equipped hotel, spacious gaming, and ample parking. The design’s abstractions of Greek cultural artifacts are displayed as a dramatic backdrop at the pedestrian-level, while a 32-story glass tower rises above. Trying to achieve a Mediterranean feel, the team used several types of blue glass for the facade to create an effervescent skin to reflect light changes throughout the day.

The complex occupies three city blocks and is part of a long-term strategy to revitalize the aging downtown core.

The 410,000-sf building constructed of 30-story reinforced concrete structure with post-tensioned flat slabs. Construction started in December 2006. The hotel structure was topped off in July 2008.

The 30 story tower includes 16 hotel floors, 7 parking floors, 2 mechanical floors and 3 lower level plaza floors for restaurants, ball rooms, meeting rooms etc. 3-D modeling and analysis was performed using RAM Concrete and STAAD-Pro.

Two main nine feet deep prestressed concrete transfer girders, spanning 50ft over the ballrooms, with staged prestressing (7300 kips post-tensioning force) carry total load of 2800 kips each. Several other smaller transfer girders, six feet deep and spanning 45 feet, are located at 6th and 14th levels where plaza level transitions to parking and from parking to hotel respectively.

Post-tensioning was done by 1/2 inch low relaxation un-bonded tendons. Encapsulated tendons were used at the parking levels for durability. PT was arranged in bands at column lines along the width of the structure and uniform along its length.

Unsymmetrical and peripheral layout of shear walls required careful evaluation of volumetric changes from creep, shrinkage, elastic shortening and thermal variation. A step-by-step procedure was adopted to find out additional moments and shears in transfer girders and columns. Reinforced concrete columns varying in size from two feet square to four feet by six feet were also designed to include effect of secondary prestressing moments.

Owner
Greektown Casino & Hotel
Location
Detroit, MI
Size
410,000-sf
Services Provided

Structural