Article toolbar Because laboratory buildings can consume up to 10 times more energy than office buildings, Arizona State University needed efficient systems to achieve its sustainability goals for the new seven-story Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV on its Tempe, Ariz., campus. Photo: Sundt Construction Stout Building Nearly 18,000 cubic yards of concrete have been placed in the seven-story ISTB IV building to date. Science lab experiments will require a building with low vibration transfer. Using strategies such as variable exhaust and intelligent sensors, the structure, now under construction, is modeled to use 41% less energy than a typical research
Article toolbar Solar module manufacturer First Solar Inc., Tempe, Ariz., has selected Mesa, Ariz. as the site of a new fabrication plant. The $300-million first phase is scheduled to break ground later this year, with operations beginning third quarter 2012. Photo courtesy First Solar The plant will produce 250 MW of thin-film photovoltaic modules per year, to be used in numerous solar generating facilities throughout the world. Photo courtesy First Solar First Solar�s manufacturing plant in Mesa will have a 3-MW rooftop solar array to generate power, similar to this one atop the company�s Perrysburg, Ohio plant. Photo courtesy First
Article toolbar The building teams of the largest 25 project starts in 2010 moved forward during the height of one of the worst recessions to hit the U.S. The Southwest was especially hard hit, as the total value of the largest starts makes clear. The value of projects on the list in 2008 was $14.8 billion; in 2010 it was only $2.9 billion. Photo Courtesy Of Visions In Photography Public Work Publicly funded projects dominate the Top Starts list, from the $84.7-million Santan Freeway design-build project in Chandler and Gilbert. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
Article toolbar An effort to create wetlands out of dry chaparral in the Arizona desert has begun two new phases of work to support emergent marshes completed last year. The three-phase, $230-million Tres Rios Ecosystem Restoration and Flood Control Project is designed to improve a seven-mile-long section of the Salt and Gila rivers in southwestern Phoenix. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project is being built in coordination with the City of Phoenix. The wetlands are sustained using reclaimed water from the city’s 91st Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant, near the convergence of the Salt, Agua Fria and Gila rivers. Last
Salt River Project has provided water and power to the Sonoran Desert for more than 100 years and is continuing to lay the foundation for a bright future despite formidable hurdles from the recession and increasing demands to reduce carbon emissions.
NV Energy is making a power play by more than quadrupling the output of its 16-year-old southern Nevada powerplant, the 144-MW Harry Allen Generating Station. Once used as a facility for peak-time power use, the simple-cycle natural gas-fired plant is now undergoing a $600-million expansion that will increase capacity to 628 MW. “After California's energy crisis, we needed to become self-sufficient and not dependent upon others,” says Andrew McNeil, NV Energy's new generation corporate executive. “At the time, we had been buying about 75% of our power from the grid.”Las Vegas-based NV Energy's service area covers 44,424 sq miles and
Article toolbar On March 18, 1911, Theodore Roosevelt pressed a button, releasing the first flow of water from a dam bearing his name, deep within the Arizona Territory. �If there could be any monument which would appeal to any man, surely this is it,� Roosevelt told the crowd of 1,000 who had assembled in the remote Superstitions Wilderness, 76 miles northeast of Phoenix. The former president had ardently campaigned for and signed the 1902 National Reclamation Act, making the dam, today�s Bureau of Reclamation and an irrigated West possible. �Great things will take place in the Salt River Valley due
Article toolbar Developer Chris Milam is proposing to build a $1.57-billion three-arena sports complex, on 70 acres, in downtown Las Vegas. The project, designed by Kansas City, Mo.-based ThreeSixty Architecture, calls for a 17,500-seat basketball/hockey arena, plus a 9,000-seat ballpark and 50,000-seat football stadium, both partially covered with tensile roof structures. Romani Group Inc., Greenwood Village, Colo., is program manager, with Turner Construction Co., New York, as general contractor. The Las Vegas National Sports Center would be located on city owned land within the Symphony Park master-plan, northeast of the World Market Center near the Interstate 15/ U.S. 95 interchange.
Article toolbar Longtime Las Vegas Architect Joel Bergman recalls when the leaded glass ceiling debuted inside the Tropicana over 30 years ago. “Nothing like that had been done before inside a casino. It changed the texture of design in Las Vegas,” he says. Photo courtesy Tropicana Las Vegas 1,658 rooms Every guest room and suite was redone, with new decor, furniture and color schemes. Bergman would know. He spent 16 years as Steve Wynn’s in-house architect, helping create The Mirage, Treasure Island and Golden Nugget, before founding Bergman Walls & Associates in 1994. The Tropicana’s $1 million, 4,000-sq-ft Art Nouveau-style
Submitted by Sundt Construction, Inc. This 52,000-sq-ft expansion includes a two-story fitness and weight room, multipurpose gymnasium and outdoor recreation center. An internal courtyard features sand volleyball and a climbing structure with tiered viewing and gathering spaces. The building includes a glass and perforated metal fa�ade that provides solar control yet maximizes visibility. This transparency “displays” the active students as a means of encouraging fitness throughout the campus. Photo:Liam Fredrick Photography The project greatly exceeded its original LEED silver goal and is anticipating platinum certification. Water conservation was addressed through water harvesting and stormwater management techniques including bioswales, the use