Madison Square Garden Entertainment Co. construction crews used a Demag CC-8800 crane, the world’s fourth-largest crawler crane (according to Las Vegas Review-Journal), to lift a 170-ton steel compression ring into place. The assembled ring is the heaviest component for the construction of Las Vegas’ MSG Sphere at The Venetian.
The ring, which has a nearly 100-foot diameter, now sits atop a temporary 285-foot-high steel shoring tower. To position the compression ring, which weighs around the equivalent of two Boeing 757 jetliners, crews spent three weeks assembling the ring on the ground and welding and bolting pieces together.
A hydraulic lift on top of the shoring tower will be used to calibrate the compression ring’s position before roof trusses begin to be put in place. Once the roof starts to take shape, crews will remove the shoring tower.
The tower took six weeks to build and is composed of 677 tons of steel.
The completed roof will be 366 feet tall, and the building will be 516 feet wide. The $1.66 billion project is expected to be complete in 2023 and seat 17,500 people.
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal
