Fast Flying Steel

Las Vegas Airport Terminal 3 Tops Out Steel Six Weeks Early

The scale of McCarran’s $1.2-billion Terminal 3 is massive, making the early delivery of steel erection all the more impressive.

By Michael A. Moore

The 20,000 tons of structural steel for McCarran’s Terminal 3 is made up of more than 17,000 individual pieces of steel, each precisely designed and fabricated to fit perfectly when hoisted into place. Photos by Michael A. Moore

The team of Phoenix-based Perini Building Co. and SME Steel Contractors of West Jordan, Utah, made erection of the main steel components at the new Terminal 3 at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport look easy, and the work was completed six weeks ahead of schedule.

The job, which took 20,000 tons of heavy structural steel for a 1.9-million-sq-ft building with a frame 300 ft wide and a half-mi long, topped out in June.

“Everyone involved with this project played an important part in getting the job done right and ahead of time,” says Mike Kerchner, Perini’s project executive in charge of the Terminal 3 job. “If you want to call it something, call it a great example of what partnering is all about.”

One of the key players was Ron Tutor, chairman and CEO of Framingham, Mass.-based Tutor Perini Corp., parent company of the project’s general contractor.

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“Ron had a concise plan for this project, and that included the four-crane erection layout,” Kerchner says. “He sat down with the steel lead, SME, and outlined what he had in mind, and then we implemented it. We hit the jobsite running and were holding working sessions with SME before the notice to proceed was issued.”

SME had its work cut out for it. “We were bringing in between 15 and 20 trucks per day to keep the four raising gangs fed,” says Derek Bamberry, project manager for the firm. “Those trucks came from our fabrication shops in Utah and Idaho plus Hirschfeld Steel Group’s three in Texas. The steel on each truck had to be from the right sequence and arrive at the right crane at the right time.”

The numbers involved with the fabrication and erection of the main structural steel are staggering. The 20,000 tons of structure were made up of more than 17,000 individual pieces of steel, each precisely designed and fabricated so that it fit perfectly when hoisted into place. Over 14,000 detail shop drawings were produced from Houston-based engineer Walter P. Moore’s structural design drawings.

McCarran International Airport’s expansion includes Terminal 3, a 1.9-million-sq-ft building with a frame 300 ft wide and a half-mi long. Other current airport construction includes the recently completed runway reconstruction and several new roadways, a people mover, baggage handling system and massive parking garage.

It took coordination to make certain that drawings and changes for the fast-track fabrication and erection were approved by all the project members. SME submitted drawings to Perini. The chain of approval then ran from owner’s representative Bechtel Infrastructure of San Francisco to architect PGAL, Las Vegas, and engineer Walter P. Moore and then back to Bechtel for final review. Under normal circumstances approval time could take up to 60 days or more.

“Working as partners on a team, we were able to compress the approval time without sacrificing quality control,” Bamberry says.

Kerchner says everything on the Terminal 3 project is schedule driven. “Our contractual delivery date for the basic structureis April 2012,” he adds. “Our partnering team goal is to move that date to September 2011.

Up to 20 trucks per day brought the structural steel on site from fabrication shops in Utah, Texas and Idaho. Each delivery had to be done in a precise sequence and delivered to the correct crane at the time it was needed to keep the assembly on track.

“We are on track to meeting that goal. The early topping out of the principal structural steel for the basic structure meant that we could start pouring concrete for the floors sooner, which moved everything else forward.”

The effect of the early top out on pushing the entire structural steel package schedule has not gone unnoticed by Terminal 3’s owner, Clark County Department of Aviation. Director Randall Walker gave a status report to the Clark County Board of Commissioners in October, saying “the structural steel was completed three months early, the concrete is 100% complete and the baggage handling system started six weeks early.”

Key Players

Owner: Clark County Dept. of Aviation
Architect: PGAL
Program Manager: Bechtel Infrastructure
Structural Engineer: Walter P. Moore
General Contractor: Perini Building Co.
Steel Subcontractor: SME Steel Contractors