Majestic Star Casino - Pittsburgh, PA

On December 11, 2007 PITG Gaming broke ground on the newest casino project in Pennsylvania - The Majestic Star. Located on the Ohio River just West of Heinz Field and the Science Center in the center of Pittsburgh, the new casino covers 400,000 square feet and will incorporate a casino, parking garage, and riverfront walk. The casino will have 100,000 square foot gaming floor, five restaurants, as well as four bars and lounges.

Independence Excavating was awarded the site work package that included the demolition of existing buildings, pavements, underground utilities, and removal of various un-documented foundations. Once the demolition was completed we hauled off over 50,000 cy of dirt from the site, installed the storm sewers and pre-drilled over 1,800 caissons to clear them from potential obstructions.

Currently, we are beginning to bring the building interior to grade prior to the erection of the steel and pre-cast concrete structure. We are also working with Mosites Construction Company, excavating and backfilling pile caps for the new building's foundations.

The project has been fast-paced and is on an accelerated schedule. From ground breaking in December of 2007 to opening in May of 2009 is a little over 16 months and is very aggressive schedule for a building of this size and complexity.

One interesting unforeseen condition that received a lot of attention was the old H-pile that we uncovered at the north end of the site. The old H-pile was buried below grade and had been part of some old existing structure that had long since been removed. We were asked to remove them since they were in conflict with the new auger cast piles that needed to be installed. A crane and vibratory hammer were mobilized and we began to remove the sixty-foot-long H-pile from the ground. What started out as a few piles quickly turned into more than three hundred by the time they were all extracted. As we were extracting the piles a reporter took notice and became interested in what they had been used to support in the past. Since no structure was present when we uncovered them we had no idea what was there. Before we were even done removing the piles, the Pittsburgh Tribune had run an article describing the location of an old iron gas tank that was in the same location as the piles. It seems that these piles may have been the remnants of the old tank which exploded in 1927 killing 26 people and leveling much of the north side.

We are happy to report that to date the project is on schedule despite the various unforeseen conditions such as weather, obstructions, unsuitable soils, etc. The project team of PITG Gaming, Keating Building Corp., Smoot Construction, Civil & Environmental Consultants, and Independence Excavating have been able to work around these obstacles and divert resources from other activities to keep costs down and stay on schedule. We were able to provide soil conditioning to help bring the on-site soils to suitable moisture content and prevent the costly expense of removing and replacing the unsuitable soils. This has allowed for the other foundation, electrical, and plumbing trades to keep working rather than wait for the subgrade to be remediated. The erection of the building will begin mid-April and our work on site will continue for several more months. Independence Excavating is proud to be part of this project and we look forward to the opening in May of 2009!