Hard Rock leaders show off Sioux City casino construction

SIOUX CITY | The screech of saws and drills and hum of compressors and generators echoed inside the juxtaposition of contemporary steel and concrete with century-old timber and brick.

"This is where the future meets the past, with the Hard Rock casino meeting the Battery Building," Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sioux City developer Bill Warner said, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the construction noise. "You can really start to see the connection of the two buildings."

Wearing a hard hat and safety glasses, Warner stood next to what once was the east exterior wall of the Battery, a former warehouse built in 1906. Now connected to a new 58,000-square-foot, one-story structure, the original brick facade is visible from almost everywhere on the future casino floor.

The facade, which was faded and in need of repair after decades of exposure to the elements, has been tuckpointed and cleaned as part of an extensive restoration of the warehouse.

"It looks beautiful, doesn't it?" Warner asked a Journal reporter and photographer/videographer.

Warner and Hard Rock Sioux City General Manager Todd Moyer on April 16 gave the Journal an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the vast downtown entertainment venue under construction at Third and Water streets.

Despite some foul-weather-related setbacks, the $128.5 million project is on pace to open as scheduled in mid- to late summer, Warner said. Officials are waiting to announce a specific date until they have a better idea of when all the work will be done.

"We don't want to pick a date and then go past it," he said.

A small city of construction workers -- a half-dozen or more contractors employing a total of nearly 300 people -- are deployed inside and outside the job site, with some crews putting in seven-day weeks.

During the tour, a Journal reporter watched workers perform a multitude of tasks, from drywall and painting to welding and wiring to pushing a wheelbarrow of wet cement to installing equipment on the roof.

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Hard Rock leaders show off Sioux City casino construction