By Seth Daniel
There’s something about steel columns and beams that make a building project much more tangible no matter how many millions of dollars one pours into removing soil and setting foundations.
And that kind of cold steel reality is about to come to bear for the Wynn Boston Harbor development in only a few weeks.
“This is a very important step for us to go vertical and get the building out of the ground,” said Bob DeSalvio, president of Wynn Boston Harbor during a ceremonial steel beam signing on Monday that coincided with the ribbon cutting for the Wynn Design and Development’s dynamic field construction office just over the line in Everett.
Chris Gordon, president of Wynn Design and Development, said steel deliveries would begin by truck just before Christmas. The steel will be coming from Canatal Industries, a Canadian company that has awarded local company Daniel Marr & Son the structural steel contract.
He said residents would likely be able to see the structural steel from outside the site by mid-January.
“That’s a huge milestone and very symbolic,” he said. “Every big job, when steel starts going up, people get it. They don’t necessarily understand slurry walls and foundations, but they understand steel.”
Right now, the slurry wall foundation has been completed, and crews continue to dig out the parking garage portion in the middle of the building site – while at the same time preparing to pour slab foundations for the restaurant/retail wing and the back-of-house wing.
He said they have been removing about 5,000 tons of dirt per day and they intend on ratcheting that up to 8,000 tons per day this week.
“That’s two trucks per day going out to Ohio and 100 train cars per day leaving on the tracks,” Gordon said. “We’re also pumping 30 million gallons from the ground per day and the mud mat has been poured at the bottom of the garage. That means the very bottom of the garage is poured now.”
To celebrate the milestone, a ceremonial steel beam was on display in front of the new field office Monday, where about 100 people signed it.
At the same time, the company celebrated the official opening of its construction field office, which is located on Charlton Street in Everett off of Broadway.
The field office is unique in that it is housing 110 employees from four entities working on the Wynn Boston Harbor resort casino, a nod to efficiency and coordination rarely seen in Boston construction projects. The luxurious field office is state of the art in every way, with walls that can be drawn upon or projected upon. The office has an open floor plan with low cubicles and seven small conference rooms for quick breakout meetings. By all intents, it is a place to get work done, Gordon said.
In the long-term, the office will become the warehouse and horticultural greenhouse for the overall development.
“The intent is coordination and collaboration and we will have everyone working in close proximity for the short-term,” said Chris Gordon, president of Wynn Design and Development. “There are no excuses here about not being able to reach a person or hear back with an answer. Here, you go find the person and get the answer. That’s a very key part of being here.”
The new 20,000 sq. ft. field office will house Wynn Design and Development, Suffolk Construction, Jacobs Engineering and GZA Environmental Services.
The new building is on the site of the former dilapidated small business complex on Charlton Street – which has now been demolished. DeSalvio said they realized the building on Charlton Street was key when they first saw it.
“We took a tour of Everett with the mayor and this site was a little bit of a fixer-upper,” he said. “We identified this as a key area with the project being right down the road…It’s very, very significant and we are so happy today.”