On December 11, 2007, PITG Gaming broke ground on the newest casino project in Pennsylvania, Rivers Casino. 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 incorporates a casino, parking garage and riverfront walk. The casino has 100,000 square feet of gaming floor, 5 restaurants as well as 4 bars & lounges.

Independence Excavating was awarded the site work package that included the demolition of the existing buildings, pavements, underground utilities and removal of various undocumented 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 for potential obstructions.

We brought the building interior to grade prior to the erection of the steel and pre-cast concrete structure. We worked directly with the foundation contractor on the excavating and backfilling pile caps for the new building's foundations.

The project was fast paced and on an accelerated schedule with completion in just over 16 months, and is a very aggressive schedule for a building of this size and complexity.

One interesting unforeseen condition that received a lot of attention were sixty foot long old H-pile that we uncovered at the North end of the site. The H-pile was buried below grade and had been part of an old existing structure that had long since been removed. We removed them as they were in conflict with the new auger cast piles that needed to be installed.