Construction is advancing on the replacement for Shea Stadium in Queens, with the planned Citi Field set to become the new home of the New York Mets baseball team.

Construction began last year on the 45,000-seat ballpark, led by a joint venture between Hunt Construction of Indianapolis and Bovis Lend Lease of New York. The work is taking place in the parking lot between Shea and 126th Street in Queens.

The new $600 million home of the Mets, designed by HOK Sport of Kansas City, is expected to open for the 2009 season. The project team has already installed most of the 2,800 piles for the foundation, according to a statement issued by the Mets.

Preconstruction had begun last summer and excavation and foundation work started even as the Mets made their playoff run to the National League Championship Series in October. They lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, the eventual world champions.

The stadium design calls for the playing field to be elevated 5 to 6 ft above the level of the current parking lot, which will add 700 lbs per sq ft to the structure’s total weight. To prevent damage to the weak native soils under the parking lot, the team is using Geofill, a lightweight cellular concrete mix for geotechnical and underground construction from Chicago-based Coast-to-Coast Grouting.

The “open cell” cellular concrete weighs 22 to 25 lbs per cu ft once in place, reducing the total load of the existing field by more than 66%. The new baseball stadium under construction for the New York Yankees in the Bronx will use a similar system to reduce weight.

The Citi Field design includes an exterior façade and entry rotunda inspired by Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers until 1957, when that franchise moved to Los Angeles. The façade will include red brick, granite, and cast stone, while the exposed steel around the stadium will be painted a dark blue.

The stadium will be an open-air venue with a natural grass field and “pitcher’s park” playing dimensions. It will have various amenities to improve upon the facilities available at Shea Stadium, such as modern video boards and sound systems, a family entertainment area, extensive access for the disabled, wider seats with more legroom between rows, a greater number of restrooms and concession areas, and more elevators. The seating will be angled toward the infield and positioned lower and closer to the playing field overall. In addition, the interior concourse will allow fans to walk around the entire stadium in a 360-degree corridor.

The stadium’s name results from a 20-year marketing deal signed with Citigroup, a New York-based financial services company. The first step of the partnership will include the commissioning of a statue of Jackie Robinson as well as naming the entry rotunda of Citi Field after him. Robinson, who was black, broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier with the Dodgers in 1947.

Construction is slated for completion this fall on a new luxury condominium high-rise in the Long Island City section of Queens.

Dubbed View 59, the 11-story building at 24-15 Queens Plaza North, clad in a glass curtain wall, will offer 39 residences ranging from 697-sq-ft one-bedroom units, starting at $410,000, to a 2,211-sq-ft bi-level penthouse with fireplace and private terrace.

In addition to the standard fare of stainless-steel appliances, the kitchens will include a sushi bar with cherry veneer. Designed by Karl Fisher, a New York architect, with interior design by Andrés Escobar & Associes of Montreal, the new building features an atrium lobby with a 20-ft-high ceiling and a waterfall. In addition, the ground floor will contain 4,400 sq ft of retail space.

The Mohegan Sun casino resort in Uncasville, Conn., is planning a $740 million expansion. Construction is slated to start this summer.

Known as Project Horizon, the expansion of the southeastern Connecticut casino will add more than 1.4 million sq. ft. to the existing facility. The project will include a hotel, music hall, and retail, dining, and gaming areas.

 The architectural team of Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo of Orlando, Fla., and the Rockwell Group of New York, a firm that has worked on previous Mohegan Sun projects, designed the new space. The construction manager will be selected this year.

The new 1,000-room House of Blues hotel will contain 300 themed rooms. Project Horizon will also feature 115,000 sq ft of retail and restaurant space, including a Japanese restaurant, burger bar, quick-serve food outlets, and a recreational lounge. The hotel will open in January 2010, following the retail and restaurant component set to open in fall 2009.

Other aspects of the project include a new 64,000-sq-ft casino adjacent to one of Mohegan Sun’s other casinos, and the expansion of the Asian gaming room in the Casino of the Earth. The new casino will be completed in spring 2008 and the Asian gaming room will be ready for users this summer.