October 29, 2007
INTERNATIONAL MARINE FLOTATION SYSTEMS
The world’s largest floating island, in Lake Powell, Colorado was largely assembled by Navajo trades workers. A luxury restaurant and marina built on the island opened in May.
Innovation
Vancouver homes, resorts make use of floating concrete islands
VANCOUVER
Truck driver Jerry Moyes had two dreams. One was to bring the Stanley Cup to the Arizona desert. The other was to build the world’s largest floating concrete island.
To help fulfill one dream he teamed up with Wayne Gretzky and bought the Phoenix Coyotes. And to help achieve his other dream, he turned to Vancouver builder Dan Wittenberg.
Gretzky and Moyes are still chasing their joint Stanley Cup dream, but the concrete island Moyes imagined is now floating in Lake Powell, a spectacular 186-mile-long lake created in the Arizona desert by damming up the Colorado River.
Wittenberg built the one-acre concrete island – the largest in the world – to support a luxurious restaurant and a full-scale marina service building for Moyes’ $80 million Antelope Point Marina on Lake Powell.
From his floating island Moyes rents out elaborate houseboats at $1,650 US/day for vacationers to cruise amidst the stunning scenery of towering mesas and box canyons with 1,000-foot-high walls of red rock.
The 27,000-square-foot floating island was built using 2,592 tons of concrete and rebar, wrapped around 122,000 cubic feet of styrofoam. It is anchored 30 feet off shore near Page, Arizona and is accessible via floating concrete ramps.
Moyes, 63, had one truck in 1966 when he started his trucking firm and called it Swift. Today he has more than 18,000 transports in the largest private trucking firm in America.
Wittenberg was a Vancouver builder who wanted a home on the waterfront, but even back in 1981, waterfront properties in the Vancouver area were prohibitively expensive.
So, Wittenberg decided to create his own waterfront by building a home that would float on the water. Its floating concrete front sidewalk gives him access to terra firma. That was the start of International Marine Flotation Systems, which today is building floating concrete homes on waterfronts throughout the world.
The land abutting Lake Powell and the floating island is Navajo territory and Wittenberg hired mostly Navajo trades to build his 13 concrete platforms on shore and then attach them into a contiguous piece after they were lifted into the lake.
“The Navajo trades had never built concrete platforms like this before, but we had an extensive training session and we were soon in production. They did a superb job,” said Wittenberg, who is off to Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates this week to talk with investors about adding floating concrete homes to that booming shoreline on the Persian Gulf.
| MOST POPULAR STORIES |
- Construction moving forward on Ho Chi Minh City tunnel
- Deaths of five immigrant workers changed jobsites forever
- Pride, sadness as Hogg's Hollow memorial unveiled
- St. Marys Cement plant workers go on strike in Bowmanville, Ontario
- ‘Sandhogs’ who perished had diverse personal stories
- 20 Most Popular Stories
| TODAY’S TOP CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS |
These projects have been selected from 371 projects with a total value of $1,380,346,147 that Reed Construction Data Building Reports reported on yesterday.
MINE, PROCESSING PLANT, TREATMENT BLDGS
$50,000,000 Cochrane Dist ON Prebid
CONDO APARTMENT BLDG, COMMERCIAL OFFICE, RETAIL
$50,000,000 Toronto ON Prebid
EDUCATION BUILDINGS, ADDN ALTS
$40,000,000 Toronto ON Prebid
| CURRENT STORIES |
- Construction Sector Council’s firm-capacity survey to identify challenges
- Pride, sadness as Hogg's Hollow memorial unveiled
- Commemorative quilt gets permanent home
- Getting a lift at iLoft condos in Toronto
- ‘Sandhogs’ who perished had diverse personal stories
- Construction Safety Association of Ontario saluted for pioneering role in provincial health and safety
- Work continues on Mona Lisa Residences in North York, Ontario
- Association of Consulting Engineering Companies campaign targets students
- China to bid on U.S. high-speed rail projects
- Northern Ontario First Nations demand consultation on chromite mining
- Filling labour gap a top priority for incoming Canadian Construction Association chair
- Safety issues raised as Vancouver hires chief electrical inspector
- Buildex Edmonton seminar to examine worksite safety on green building projects
- Canadian Construction Association awards highlight excellence
- Chilliwack Cultural Centre project sets tilt-up concrete record
- Imperial Oil choses Finning International as mining equipment supplier for oilsands project
- BC Hydro awards purchase agreements for 19 clean wind, run-of-river energy projects
- Ledcor continues construction on mixed-use project in Vancouver
- Role of general contractor has evolved over the years
- Alberta Pipe Trades College ready to open the valve on training
- Friction grows between generals and trades during recent downturn
- Green building adding to administrative burden for contractors
| ALEX’S ECONOMICS BLOG |

Reed Construction Data Chief Economist Alex Carrick discusses current developments in the North American economic environment with emphasis on the construction industry.
- Sub-sector investment spending intentions from Statistics Canada’s latest survey (March 17, 2010)
- A dozen incredible measurement sets on Canada’s changing ethnic mix (March 9, 2010)
- How fragile is recovery around the world? (March 3, 2010)
- More







