Outside the Region: McLaren Engineering completes design of Live! Hotel & Event Center

Hanover, MD McLaren Engineering Group has completed its design work on the new 350,000 s/f Live! Hotel and Event Center in Hanover, MD. Located at 7002 Arundel Mills Circle, the building has 310 hotel rooms, a spa and 1,500-seat ballroom. 

Owned by The Cordish Companies, the hotel was built as an expansion to the Live! Casino structure that opened in 2012. The hotel will employ over 500, serving tourists, residents and Live! Casino patrons in the region. The grand event center and conference center are to follow, later this year.

McLaren and its team have been working on the project for over five years to design a cost-effective structural frame without sacrificing key architectural elements and flexibility. The firm provided services that include structural design & engineering, construction documents, permitting, site / civil engineering, survey work and site landscaping. 

“The Live! Hotel and Event Center is a prime example of our applied ingenuity and cutting-edge engineering,” said Malcolm McLaren, president and CEO, McLaren Engineering Group, which has a growing Baltimore office. “The building is an all-glass tower with a sloped facade that juts out eight feet further west than its foundation. Our innovative design increased building functionality while creating a stunning exterior.”  

Live! Casino is the largest casino and entertainment venue on the East Coast with approximately 4,000 slot machines and more than 200 live action table games. The two million s/f structure includes approximately 310,000 s/f of casino space on the first level. The hotel’s construction was phased to minimize interruption to the 24-hour casino operations.  

McLaren moved an existing roadway adjacent to the west side of the casino about 300 ft. to create space for the new hotel. The new surface parking lots will provide in excess of 1,900 spaces and are built on top of ground that previously housed a stormwater pond. The building pad underwent extensive ground improvements to solidify the soil before construction could begin. 

“One of the most challenging aspects of the project was building up against the casino. To connect the buildings, we designed an elevator core attached to the existing precast casino garage to give patrons access to both facilities,” said Dave McLaren, P.E., vice president and Maryland regional director, McLaren Engineering Group. “This required us to cut the existing garage girders, leaving a portion of the garage to be supported by the elevator core. Additionally, the transformation of the existing stormwater pond into 4,600 linear feet of 10’ diameter pipe underground allowed for the reclamation of land generating 510 of the approximately 1,900 added surface parking spaces” 

“We are pleased with the work McLaren Engineering Group has done to capture our vision for the Live! Hotel and Event Center,” says Taylor Gray, The Cordish Companies. “McLaren has a long history of engineering some of the most innovative projects in the Northeast and with this new hotel and event center they have helped us maintain our edge as the biggest and best entertainment complex on the East Coast.” 

The hotel tower is the tallest structure in Anne Arundel County, MD.