Mashantucket, CT – On March 12, the Connecticut Building Congress (CBC) held a project showcase highlighting the Great Wolf Lodge at Foxwoods.
The event kicked off with networking at the Vue 24 restaurant located on the 24th floor in the newly opened Pequot Hotel. It was followed by a panel featuring Mike Dinallo and Michael Crowl, project executives at Turner Construction, and Bruce Greene, senior project executive at Great Wolf Lodge. Ryan Scrittorale, senior project manager at Benesch and CBC president, moderated the discussion.
Turner Construction is serving as the construction manager on the $300 million, 549-room resort. Located on a 13-acre lot adjacent to the Foxwoods Resort Casino, the facility will feature a 91,000sf indoor waterpark heated to 84 degrees, a 61,000sf family entertainment center, 7,500sf of flexible conference space, several dining options, and family-friendly suites, some with multiple bedrooms.
The resort is being built as part of a partnership agreement with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, owner of Foxwoods Casino Resort, one of the largest resort casinos in the U.S. Once built, the resort will become home to the 23rd Great Wolf Lodge nationally and is aimed at attracting people with young children to the region to create a family vacation destination.
Crowl said, “Early in the project, the Foxwoods, MPTN, and construction teams rallied around the challenge of relocating Trolley Line Boulevard while keeping the casino active. The utilities feeding the casino all ran below the old road and had to be accounted for in the relocation plan. These services included a mission critical high pressure gas main that feeds their co-gen plants; numerous communication, tele-data, electrical redundancy duct banks and services; as well as storm, water and sanitary utilities. The successful planning and execution of these relocations required the entire team to be focused on maintaining a safe environment for both patrons and the workforce performing deep utility excavation work, which at some points were in excess of 25 feet below the surface of the roadway.”
Benesch is serving as civil engineer and landscape architect, and GZA is the geotechnical engineer on the project. The resort is set to open in early 2025.
