Excel Engineering Wins Top 2025 CFSEI Creative Detail Award for Harrah’s in New Orleans

All photos courtesy of Excel Engineering, Inc.

Excel Engineering, Inc., earned the 2025 CFSEI Creative Detail Award for its work at the Historic Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ceasars Entertainment completed a hotel renovation at the Harrah’s Casino. Opened in late 2024, the renovation to the existing casino introduced new dining and gaming options. The new 340-room hotel will offer luxurious accommodations. The total cost of the renovations and new hotel tower exceeds $300 million.

Excel Engineering collaborated closely with other project partners in engineering cold-formed steel (CFS) framing solutions that align with the lifetime settlement of the building.

The Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute presented the Creative Detail — First Place honor in the 2025 CFSEI Awards to the project.

Excel Engineering earned the 2025 CFSEI Creative Detail Award for its work at Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Design Challenges and Solutions

Cold-Formed Steel Framing at Harrah’s, New Orleans

Building a 17-story post-tensioned concrete hotel tower in a region such as the Mississippi River Delta is not easy. Engineers must conduct extensive studies to determine the lifetime settlement of the building. The same is true when a 17-story concrete tower joins a historic venue in downtown New Orleans. The design team must take special consideration so the two structures still work together over the lifetime of the structure.

The owner and design team required the first floor of the new hotel to match the first floor of the existing casino. Doing so would make the guest experience between the two buildings seamless.

However, floors 2 through 17 punched their foundations through the matching first floor slabs. They used separate footings into the soil below. This created a requirement for differential movement on the first floor. Geological studies set this deflection requirement at between 6″-to-8″ of lifetime settlement. Engineers expected the settlement to occur over a 40-to-50-year period. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Excel Engineering’s stone wall transition design included settlement details — an important consideration for projects in the Mississippi River Delta.

Addressing Settlement Challenges in the Mississippi River Delta

The extensive cold-formed steel (CFS) framing at the hotel Porte Cochere had to account for that 6″-to-8″ of lifetime settlement, a task that off-the-shelf connectors could not solve.

The architectural detail (Figure 2) required the settlement detail to be in the wall span instead of at the head of the wall using an overlapping detail with a long slot.

Because no manufactured CFS connectors allowed up to 8″ of differential movement, Excel Engineering worked with King Company, a CFS specialty contractor, to develop a detail that met the settlement requirements.

The Harrah’s hotel renovation featured extensive use of cold-formed steel (CFS) framing.

Figure 2. Excel Engineering’s architectural detail called for the settlement detail to be in the wall span instead of at the head of the wall.

Architectural Detailing and Settlement Joints

The team chose to follow the architectural detail in principle. But they revised it to allow for additional stability. They added an additional slot — two total — to prevent it from acting as a hinge during fabrication. The stud included reinforcement with a kicker. It also included bracing back to the post-tensioned level 2 slab. The team located the embedment plates carefully. They ensured the soffit framing and the wall framing, with required settlement, attached securely. (Figures 3 and 4)

By including the embedment plates, the team eliminated the need to use low-embedment anchors or scan the slab when attaching the suspended CFS framing.

Figure 3. The team located embedment plates to ensure the soffit framing and wall framing, with required settlement, attached securely.

Figure 4. This Excel Engineering detail shows the embodiment plate plan and various reference details.

BIM Coordination Simplifies CFS Installation

Excel’s in-house BIM coordination team proved invaluable in simplifying the on-site installation and the material take-off.

Most of the settlement joints hide above the soffit framing to prevent issues with the exterior finishes. However, the exterior columns required settlement joints at a mid-span location. (Figure 2)

The team braced back to the concrete columns to properly support and locate the joint at the required location.

Excel Engineering’s in-house BIM team coordinated the material take-off and on-site installation.

Bracing back to the concrete columns was necessary to properly support and locate the settlement joints.

Team Effort Behind a CFSEI Award-Winning Project

Execution of such a unique detail demanded significant coordination. The structural engineer (Walter P. Moore) and general contractor (AECOM) worked closely with Excel Engineering and King Company.

From fully understanding the requirements of the detail to communicating to make sure everything ran smoothly, this project required a team effort by everybody involved. (Figure 5)

The Excel Engineering team’s work testifies to its focus on details. The team provided a creative solution to the settlement problems common in the Mississippi River Delta. Read the complete story and obtain the complete design diagrams for Excel Engineering’s 2025 CFSEI Creative Detail Award here.

Figure 5. The Excel Engineering team understood the detail requirements and communicated effectively, ensuring a smooth project.

Additional Resources

• eBook: Specifying Cold-Formed Steel Framing: A Guide for Architects and Engineers
• 2023 SFIA Awards: 7 Key Learnings about Using Cold-Formed Steel (CFS)
• SFIA Reveals 7 Winners of the 2023 Industry Project Awards in Online Ceremony