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client: Grand Falls Casino
employer: DLRGroup
role: Project Architect | Designer | BIM
year: 2019
renderings: Lifang CG + mrlw
Grand Falls Resort and Casino, located in Larchwood Iowa (literally across the street from South Dakota) was a long-time client for DLR & the firm in Minneapolis that DLR had merged with (KK&E).
The overall scope of this project is multi-phase renovation of several interior spaces as well as an addition of a 66 key hotel.
Area #1: Remodel the central bar area and gaming floor to include a performance stage.
Area #2: Remodel the existing large performance stage into a sports betting area.
Area #3: Hotel addition, and connecting that to the existing hotel and casino spaces. This proved to be a challenge.
The 3,500 SF Betfred Sports betting area opened on a January 27, 2020 with a budget of $1.5 million for the development & installation.
At the time of my departure from DLR, the hotel portion was still under construction and slated to open mid-summer.
I came on the project team in 2019 as the hotel project had evolved to the design development phase. What I actually got was a diagrammatic CAD plan and a Sketchup model. There was a LOT of ground to make up, and the design was still evolving.
The stage permit drawings were ‘missing’ the sports betting and hotel addition was a Sketchup model.
So, I dug in. Self-performed the entire architecture scope, retooled and revised the interior re-design scope and coordinated the Betfred equipment installation.
Starting with the existing conditions, I knocked out the existing hotel and enough of the background needed for the first 3 portions of the development.
Then, I took on the hotel portion and schematically redesigned the addition in Revit to connect to the existing modeled structure. In my humble opinion – all things that should’ve already been in place in order to declare a design development phase. I did all of that while being scolded about the hours I was working in order to accomplish these things to meet a deadline (while no assistance was offered).
In order to renovate the existing stage area, a new stage area needed to be constructed. The interesting wrinkle with this area was that the railing needed to be redesigned in order to reuse existing glass panels from the original railing and from areas in what was becoming the sport bar as the timeline to supply a new railing was untenable. I reorganized the panel spacing to work with 100% relocated panels and still be laterally symmetrical from the center of the stage. The backdrop for the stage area was also modified slightly to accomplish this seamlessly.
As the more sizable of the two remodeling projects, the timeline for renovation of the existing space needed to cross over the timeline to the addition of the structural modifications required for the walkway addition. There was no sense remodeling a space just to tear it apart, weld plates to an existing column and then put it all back together once again. Timelines and phasing got jumbled, but the schedule marched forward.
As a portion of the redesign, the client was looking at fast-tracking a lounge/media seating system. To aid in figuring out quantity and visibility, I found the specs for the requested chair, built a custom family for it and composed a few studies, as well as exploring the options using Escape 3D via zoom calls to aid the decision making process. Not anything that I wouldn’t ordinarily do, but these ‘little things’ add value to the project.
The sports book opened just in time for the 2020 Super Bowl, and to much excitement and acclaim.
For the 66 key addition, a connecting walkway was the most cost effective way to join new to the existing, which meant encapsulating an elaborate stone feature wall while creating new places to take in views of the pool area, gold course and landscape beyond.
Of course, there are code implications when you place a Type VA residential addition with a Type IB walkway adjacent to a Type IB assembly into a confined area of expansion. In this case it resulted in a few different types of firewalls, expansion and control joint conditions and several fire-rated assemblies.
To make matters even more interesting, there was no definitive AHJ in this portion of Iowa. Now the original phase of the building was owned and managed by the state – so the state fire marshal was the reviewing entity. Since the casino was no longer owned by Lyon County, the state fire marshal wasn’t that interested in the review. Which kicked it over to Larchwood – which isn’t large enough of a city to support a permitting office… which should kick the review back up to the county, but there wasn’t a permitting office there either. So as a result – I made it abundantly clear what the fire detailing and assemblies were to be, as well as every line of applicable code and diagrams having to do with this complicated meeting of buildings. Basically, things only other architect’s would find interesting.
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