The wide dirt expanses of the construction site for Legends at Sparks Marina buzzed and clanked as cranes lifted steel beams, trucks hauled loads of water and dirt, and nearly 300 construction workers plied their trade on Tuesday.

A few miles away, a firm hired by the city of Sparks is attempting to ensure fair and livable wages are paid to these workers, as they sweat to meet a grand opening deadline just over six months away.

It is unclear how much the wage requirement will add to the cost to construct RED Development's $1 billion shopping, restaurant and entertainment complex.

State law requires that all projects using public financing ensure workers are paid the prevailing wage - or the wage determined to be fair for skilled tradesmen, taking into account the area's cost of living. Public financing for the Legends project has not yet been issued.

The Sparks City Council approved a contract for $70,560 with Poggemeyer Design Group, Inc. on Feb. 25 to track payroll records and do random worker interviews for Q&D Construction's work at the Legends site through its October grand opening for phase one.

The first phase of the development is set to include some buildings within a central mall featuring unique retail, entertainment and restaurants connected by pedestrian paths and landscaping.

Q&D is doing the site work, grading, installing the sewer system, storm drains, paving the parking lots, putting in landscaping and lights, and also constructing buildings B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and R.

Q&D started putting up structural steel on March 5 for the frame of building "C" at the northeast corner of Scheels within the pedestrian mall area. Crews are expected to complete the steel framing by June 1, said Kevin Felton, owner's representative for RED Development.

Next week, crews will begin erecting the structural steel frame for building "B" at the northwest corner of Scheels within the same pedestrian mall area.

"Basically it is the pedestrian mall in front of Scheels All-Sports," said Neil Krutz, Sparks Community Development Director. "Q&D is building everything around that, except for the Scheels and the hotel/casino."

The most recent contract for the prevailing wage study by Poggemeyer adds to and extends a $43,680 contract to track prevailing wages for the Scheels construction approved on Nov. 13.

"Soon we will be bringing another contract to the Sparks City Council to approve a contract to do the same checking work on the Target construction," Krutz said.

The prevailing wage costs related to constructing the Target Greatlands store is estimated at $3.5 million, according to a report on financing released by Fieldman Rolapp & Associates on Feb. 13. The same report estimated it would cost about $2 million in prevailing wage costs to construct the Lowe's Home Improvement store.

"The developer had been moving forward on the assumption that those parcels wouldn't be subject to the prevailing wage (requirement)," Krutz said. "These are rough estimates provided to our financial advisor; they are subject to being proved out by the developer."

Krutz said the added cost of paying prevailing wages depends on the construction contracts for each piece of the project.

"RED picked a union contractor - Q & D Construction - to do phase one," Krutz said. "The prevailing wage adds nothing to what they're doing."

For many months, Interstate-80 commuters have spied the creation of Scheels All-Sports store, a massive 248,000 square-foot building with a towering glass core topped by skylights and stretching two stories high.

"(Scheels contractor) Sampson Construction has about 200 full-time workers under their watch (to construct Scheels)," Felton said.

Crews at Scheels are putting up dry wall, painting and doing tile work inside the building. On the outside, some crews are suspended on high support beams while doing masonry work and roofing.

The Scheel's All-Sports store is anticipating a Sept. 28 grand opening, a few days ahead of schedule, said Dave Claflin, RED's vice-president of marketing.

Other larger buildings near the pedestrian shopping mall are anticipated to open in May 2009, Krutz said.