Taj Mahal Hotel/Casino
Atlantic City, New Jersey
The Trump Taj Mahal was the first of the "mega casinos" in Atlantic City. This $900 million complex features a 1,200-room, 44-story staggered-truss luxury hotel tower, and a 1,200,000 square foot low-rise support podium containing the casino, restaurants, meeting rooms and retail space, a 6,000-seat sports arena, two 10-story parking structures (3,600 cars), a central mechanical plant and a 1,000 foot ocean pier.
Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor (PS&S) Structural Engineers received two major design awards for this project. The hotel tower and podium received the Master Builder in Steel Award from the Mid Atlantic Steel Fabricators Association. Steel Pier received the annual statewide Merit Award for New Concrete Concepts from the New Jersey Chapter of the American Concrete Institute.
PS&S' unique combination of disciplines was instrumental in bringing this complicated project to successful completion. First, the Environmental Department obtained the myriad of required permits. Next, Geotechnical engineers performed a detailed soil boring program to determine the subsurface conditions at the site. Working with PS&S Structural engineers, foundation alternatives were developed for the various components of the project.
Environmental conditions of the ocean front site had to be determined. To accurately determine the wind forces expected at the site for the design of the tower, a model of the proposed building and the surrounding cityscape was tested in a wind tunnel and the resulting wind force mesurements were converted to real loading on the full size building proposed for the site. These loads were used in the building structural design and in the design of the window wall and façade systems that clad the building.
PS&S Structural engineers, based on the architectural layout of the tower and current economic conditions, determined that the building would be framed utilizing the "staggered-truss" system. At the time of its construction, this tower was the tallest building in New Jersey, and the tallest staggered-truss building in the world. The staggered-truss system is a framing method that results in a column-free footprint below the tower, the only columns being the perimeter columns. This framing system is very economical and structurally stiff in order to resist the hurricane force winds on the oceanfront and allows the lowrise areas below the tower to be fully utilized. The tower is founded on concrete-filled steel-shell piles bearing in the dense sand layers approximately 60 feet below the site. Batter piles were utilized to resist the high lateral wind loads at the foundation.
The client needed as column-free a casino as possible. To meet this requirement, PS&S Structural engineers designed a system of story-high trusses spanning between columns on a grid of 60 feet by 90 feet. The podium is four stories high with two of the stories, within the depth of the trusses, being utilized for back-of-house spaces, eye-in-the-sky surveillance areas, service corridors and mechanical spaces. Ballrooms, meeting rooms, restaurants and other functions are located at the upper public level. The roof is fully landscaped and contains a health spa, pool and special guest rooms.
Below the casino, a tunnel allows buses and service vehicles to cross the block between adjacent city streets that surround the complex and acts as a seawall that protects the complex from ocean scour in major storms.
PS&S Structural engineers also designed a 65,000 square foot, column-free sports arena along Pennsylvania Avenue adjacent to the complex. 210-foot-long steel trusses span across the area providing 30 feet of clear space to the bottom of the truss. Within the trusses themselves are service catwalks, lighting and points for hanging of displays and equipment.
The parking structures provide spaces for nearly 10,000 cars and are constructed of precast concrete. One of the parking structures also contains the central mechanical heating and cooling plant for the entire complex.
The historic Steel Pier, located right across the boardwalk from the Taj Mahal, was replaced by a new concrete-framed structure that incorporates composite precast and cast in place concrete deck framing. The deck is supported on 60-inch-diameter concrete cylinder piles that were designed to resist wave heights and storm surges of the hurricanes that frequent the New Jersey coastline. The 600-ton capacity piles held the record for the largest capacity pile load test ever performed. The pier was designed to accommodate future loading from residential and hospitality uses.