|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Overview Design Team Construction Team Timeline Awards Financing Construction Photos Diversity Contact Us Site Map Links |
Overview 
  t took just 27-1/2 months to build SAFECO FIELD - about the same amount of time it took
to build Coors Field in Denver and Jacobs Field in Cleveland; neither of which included
a roof in their construction schedules.
When Huber, Hunt & Nichols, Inc. formed a joint venture to build SAFECO FIELD with Kiewit Construction Company under the leadership of the Public Facilities District's own project management staff, the task before them was to identify some creative construction techniques. The ones they found allowed them to complete the project in an amazingly short amount of time, leading the team to gain recognition in the industry and others to copy their methods: At Pacific Bell Park, the new $306 million open air home of the San Francisco Giants, some of the same techniques first used at the SAFECO FIELD site are now in use. The ballpark site was a challenge from the beginning. The site was a challenge from the beginning. The site was former tidelands, now covered with fill. The soil had the consistency of oatmeal - not solid enough to support a new sports stadium in a region known for its vulnerability to earthquakes. So, the construction crew drove 1,400 pilings into the ground an average of 90 feet below the surface until the piles connected to bedrock solid enough to support the foundation. The pilings were connected at the surface by reinforced concrete to other pilings and from that a foundation arose for the unique new ballpark. Meanwhile the system that would move the retractable roof was being put in place, piece by piece. The roof moves on wheeled, travel truck assemblies driven by 96, 10-hp motors. The travel trucks were built at Ederer's shop in Seattle just blocks from the ballpark then hoisted by cranes into place on the runways located on the ballpark's northern and southern edges. Each travel truck assembly was put into place on the runway directly beneath the temporary staging platform where the truss would be erected. Truss legs would rest on the piece of the retractable roof mechanism that would move it. Workers building the truss would connect it to the travel trucks already waiting in place. As each truss was completed, it was rolled off the platform to make way for building the next truss. Interfacing the construction of the ballpark with the largest span retractable roof built to date was a challenge. The 655-foot span of the roof is larger than many bridges. To build the roof and bowl as two separate, but integrated projects, it was necessary to rent property along its eastern edge from the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railroad. Railroad tracks run along the ballpark's eastern edge. And along the track's eastern edge was railroad property that became, for the construction project, the place where roof steel was stored and assembled like gigantic tinker-toys, then hoisted up to the staging platform built over the railroad tracks. The train tracks were Burlington Northern's lifeline up and down the West Coast. Delays to the trains were not acceptable. So each time a train went by, workers on the roof had to "freeze" to prevent anything from dropping on a train causing damage and delays. Meanwhile, work continued on the seating bowl where the work was broken down into 55, smaller than usual bid packages. On a typical project, there are a few large bid packages. Everything related to something like concrete, finishes, or metals would be contained in its own individual bid package for the entire building. But when ground was broken at SAFECO FIELD, architects were still designing parts of the building. So, to get the construction underway, smaller portions of the work were put out to bid. Later, as other drawings were available, that word would be bid as well. Once bids were selected, the construction work could commence. This kept the project moving quickly and didn't require drawings for the whole park to be completed before getting underway on select sections of the construction. Cranes were another crucial construction technique. Rather than taking the typical approach of using mobile cranes, which must crawl around the site to wherever they are needed, the ballpark construction managers chose to use tower cranes that are mounted on high, fixed towers. Those created more flexibility in building the bowl because they could reach high places even without moving close to the building unlike the mobile cranes that must get closer to what they are lifting or they will tip over. Tower cranes also meant the project could avoid one scheduling problem that typically happens when building stadium-type seating: leaving several of the front rows unfinished until the end in order to allow the cranes to get close enough to lift things to upper levels. Also important was that the tower cranes didn't need the kind of space to move around like a mobile crane does. That left the future playing field useable as a staging area for building the seating bowl. Space was at a premium on the busy urban site. Surrounded by a state highway on the north, the railroad tracks on the east, and a busy major arterial to the city's industrial area along its western edge, the ballpark construction site was hemmed in. Using the playing field for staging and renting the space from the railroad for staging the roof were integral to completing the ballpark in the 27-1/2 month time frame. To further compress the schedule, select elements of the structure were erected on the night shift. This freed the cranes during the day to lift steel and foundation materials. Activities that required cordoning off areas of the work site also were done at night in order to avoid slowing daytime traffic. At its peak, the labor workforce soared to over 1,000 workers. It took a larger than usual project management staff to coordinate all this activity and there wasn't time to write letters back and forth. So, project partners co-located, with staff from Hunt-Kiewit, NBBJ, the Public Facilities District, and the Seattle Mariners all housed in the same buildings near people working on the same issues. If a question or problem cropped up, all they had to do was lean over the office partition to talk with their counterparts regarding solutions. The ballpark was built, in essence, as seven separate buildings due to seismic requirements, so that the building could shift against itself without breaking during an earthquake. The separation of the bowl into several separate pieces had its advantages: work could be underway at the field level on one section while upper deck work could be underway at the next section. When one trade had finished its work, the next stage of work could begin in that section, allowing mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work to follow quickly after concrete had been poured. It was another of the innovative, timesaving decisions made by the design and building team. The huge project used massive amounts of materials and drew literally from throughout the world. Some steel came from Belgium. One steel supplier won contracts for portions of both the roof and the bowl steel. The steel fabrication for this project consumed over half of two of their plants' capacities for a full year. |
||
Public Facilities District All rights reserved. |
|||