MichiganConstruction.Net

The Little River Casino Resort was originally designed with masonry. With an extremely tight schedule and a January construction start, along with the many other advantages of precast concrete, the construction team decided precast would be the system of choice. The hotel features 44,159 sq ft of hollowcore floor plank, 22,179 sq ft of 8: solid demising walls, elevator, stair-shaft walls, and precast balcony slabs. "With the kind of winter conditions we have in Northern Michigan, we needed to be able to work regardless of the weather conditions. Using precast allowed us to do just that," Scott Potter - The Christman Co.

Acoustics By Design

After Little River Casino moved into their new gaming facility, they discovered a safety issue that needed to be resolved. There was no way of knowing that the fire alarm (if it ever had to sound) would be loud enough to be heard over the noise of the gaming equipment and background noise of the casino floor. The casino needed assurance that they were legally following the National Fire Alarm Code, but more importantly, they needed to know that every guest would hear the fire alarm in the case of an emergency.

Acoustics By Design was retained to perform a 24-hour noise monitoring study of the casino floor. Our professional engineers used sophisticated sound meters throughout the space to measure the ambient noise levels. We compared the site measurements with the National Fire Alarm Code and the 2003 International Building Code. After a detailed analysis of the measurements and interpretation of the fire and building codes, recommendations were given for fire alarm sound levels that satisfied the code requirements and kept the casino guests safe in case of an emergency.

Allied Electric Inc

They say there’s a first time for everything, and the saying proved true for Allied Electric when contracted to install the electrical system in the Little River Casino Hotel in Manistee. “For the first time in our history, we prefabricated the wiring in the shop rather than built it on site,” recalls Mike Powers, Allied’s project manager for the 80-room facility. The prefabrication of electrical and mechanical work has been gaining popularity in the last ten years. Rather than sending drawings to the construction site, where the foreman lays it out for the electricians to install, on this occasion everything was pre-engineered and assembled in-house before being boxed and shipped to the site, room by room. Powers says it made sense to do it this way, since hotel rooms are fairly uniform.

Prefabrication has definite advantages in terms of schedule, labor costs, and controlling risk, according to Powers. “When you can apply it correctly, it allows you to meet a compressed schedule with less stress—or if you get behind, you can catch up.” Powers says that Allied Electric will use the prefabrication method in the future when individual projects would benefit from that approach.

Kerkstra Precast

The Little River Casino Resort was originally designed with masonry. With an extremely tight schedule and a January construction start, along with the many other advantages of precast concrete, the construction team decided precast would be the system of choice. The hotel features 44,159 sq ft of hollowcore floor plank, 22,179 sq ft of 8: solid demising walls, elevator, stair-shaft walls, and precast balcony slabs. "With the kind of winter conditions we have in Northern Michigan, we needed to be able to work regardless of the weather conditions. Using precast allowed us to do just that," Scott Potter - The Christman Co.