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While the casino part of the project remains on hold, crews Tuesday were installing the steel underground walls for Mohawk Harbor. Geoff Redick reports.

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — Developers for Rivers Casino and Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady are showing their hand again.

On Tuesday, project leaders hosted a tour of the $480 million construction site on Erie Boulevard. The walking tour covered the eastern end of the 60-acre site, where the primary focus is Mohawk Harbor: a 50-boat waterway that will be surrounded by a tall, mixed-use complex of retail, office and residential space.

Already, the harbor's first layer has been excavated, with about 15 feet of dirt and fill removed over roughly 5 acres.

"We've removed 75,000 yards of concrete, and crushed it," said project superintendent Austin DiSiena, of Rifenberg Construction "It was remnants of old building foundations."

For much of the 20th century, the site was home to the ALCO Locomotive factory, which installed the old foundations. The crushed concrete will be used as filling material as the site is leveled off. Excavating teams will still need to dig the harbor another 10 feet deep. On Wednesday, crews were installing "sheet piles," large steel fortifications buried deep underground, which will serve as the harbor's underwater walls.

The project is progressing on-schedule, according to developer David Buicko with Schenectady's Galesi Group. Buicko said Tuesday that the harbor development will have potential to grow and change, if needed.

"We don't know what the market wants," Buicko explained. "We don't know if there's going to be a need for 500 apartments, or (the planned) 194. We don't know if people will want more condos. We are creating something that didn't exist before."

Comparatively, the western end of the site remains untouched. The portion closest to Schenectady's historic Stockade District, it also happens to be the planned site of neighboring Rivers Casino. Galesi Group has commissioned what work it can, including leveling, ground compaction and utility installations — but most of the casino's construction is on hold, until the New York State Gaming Commission officially awards its full casino gaming license to Schenectady, and its partner Rush Street Gaming.

Buicko expects the license to be awarded by October, at which time both the harbor and the casino will be under construction.

"We're going to do a lot at once, because people don't want to live in a construction zone," he said. "We're going to be doing an office building, we're doing townhouses, all at the same time so that it all rises up at once."

Aside from securing the license, Rush Street Gaming must still gain approval from Schenectady's City Planning Commission. The commission is expected to approve Rush Street's latest construction renderings for the new casino at its meeting Wednesday evening.