The new MGM Grand Hotel and Casino at Foxwoods and its sister property, the Foxwoods Resort Casino, are the largest gaming destination spots in Connecticut. The complex is owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.
Foxwoods Resort Casino has been one of the nation’s most successful Native American hospitality and gaming ventures since opening in 1992. Eager to expand and attract convention business, the Tribal Nation retained HKS Inc. to design an entertainment destination with a focus on fine dining and a broad array of non-gaming experiences with a distinctly different visual aesthetic than the fairytale castle look of the original resort.
Completed in May 2008, the $700 million, 2-million-square-foot
(185,800-m2) MGM Grand resort includes a 50,000-square foot
(4,645-m2) ballroom, the largest in the Northeast; 21,000-square-foot (1,951-m2) spa; 4,000-seat performing arts center; 50,000-square-foot gaming floor designed to capture the look of a Las Vegas-style resort; and 115,000 square feet (10,684 m2) of adaptable meeting and convention space.
The hotel is a 30-story glass tower with 825 rooms. Alcoa Architectural Products’ Reynobond ACM unifies the façades of the hotel and four-story casino. The old and new properties are united by a new bridge with a people mover that allows guests to go between the two casinos in less than a minute.
The lobby is enclosed in a dramatic porte cochere of metal and glass. The project utilized a variety of ACM material that was finished with a Valspar coating. Riverside Group and Island International Industries fabricated and installed 55,000 square feet (5,110 m2) of 0.16-inch (4-mm) Reynobond ACM PE core in Marble with a Valspar finish; 15,000 square feet (1,394 m2) of 0.16-inch Reynobond ACM PE core in Basket Beige with a Valspar finish; and 3,300 square feet
(307 m2) of 0.16-inch Reynobond ACM PE core in Honey Twist with a Valspar finish on all fascias, canopies, soffits and hotel accent bands on the first four stories of the hotel and casino.
A cost-effective combination of EIFS, ACM and a unitized curtainwall panel system was used to clad the building. Using an EIFS system at the base, the architects created an undulating base crowned with 6- to 8-foot (1.8- to 2.4-m) overhangs fabricated in ACM. The huge radiuses created by the undulating arcs caused some engineering challenges because of the difficulties involved in maintaining the arcs. Components of the Pequot Bridge, which links the new casino to the original casino, were prefabricated at the Island International factory and installed on-site to meet the aggressive construction schedule. All accents, soffits and canopies were fabricated on-site. The project features the first unitized curtainwall manufactured in China.
The ACM was installed in Riverside Group’s R4-300 dry joint equalized rainscreen system due to concerns about condensation problems in the coastal area and possible maintenance required on the miles of caulk joints required with a wet-seal system.
Owner/operator: Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, Mashantucket
General contractor: Perini Building Corp., Framingham, Mass.
Architect: HKS Inc., Dallas
Panel fabricator: Riverside Group, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Panel installer: Island International Industries Inc., Calverton, N.Y.
Wall panels: Alcoa Architectural Products, Eastman, Ga.
Finish: Valspar, Minneapolis
