News

Out of more than 100 entries, Yates Construction’s IP Casino Dry Dock project has been named ENR Texas & Louisiana’s Project of the Year and Best Renovation/Restoration.

Boyd Gaming selected Yates Construction to construct the Gaming Vessel Moorage Improvements and Graving Dock at the IP Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. The purpose of the project was to get their existing gaming vessel out of the current floating condition and into the dry in order to make repairs to the existing structure while maintaining their operations. Therefore, the majority of the scope of work was to be performed by divers beneath the existing facility, which encompasses an area of approximately 90,000 square feet.

A notable portion of the work occurred prior to the installation of the barge frames. A concrete seal slab was placed within the basin to create a hard surface to work from and to support the barge frames. This slab was poured underwater by divers and covered the basin area within the bulkhead walls. Total concrete placed was 4,500 cubic yards. Following installation of the frames, the remaining seal slab was placed. This pour consisted of 12,702 cubic yards of concrete over a period of eight days. Concrete was pumped through a series of five inch concrete slick lines pre-installed on the barge frames on a grid of approximately 25 feet center each way. Two divers were in the water at all times to control placement and grade of the pour. To our knowledge this was the largest continuous underwater pour on record at the time of construction.

Since completion in December 2014, the graving dock slab, with 150 million pounds of vessel and concrete atop it, has experienced no measurable settlement.

Click here to read the featured article from Engineering News Record Texas & Louisiana’s December 2015 issue.