Baseball’s Opening Day Moves for No One
Critical to the success of the left field wall renovation for Oriole Park at Camden Yards was ensuring its completion by opening day. Due to the limited time for design and construction, Gilbane recommended a retaining wall system for the left field wall relocation that would act as both a permanent retaining wall and support of excavation. This recommendation also ensured we would have full control of the design, material procurement and installation of the wall through a single vendor. While this design effort occurred, Gilbane sourced and ensured the availability of specialty materials such as warning track material, sod, and wall pads before getting released to begin construction. Confirming the availability of labor and equipment to perform the construction was also critical to schedule certainty. We lined up crews in advance of our release to construct, and we mobilized within 24 hours to begin the work. Sports venue construction will always present new challenges. Being flexible will help overcome these challenges and meet the developed milestone dates, since schedule slippage is never an option.
Gilbane is no stranger to opening day. As a collaborative partner with the Boston Red Sox since 2007, Gilbane’s team successfully delivered multiple fast-track projects in time for Opening Day at Fenway Park. With a fast-track construction schedule of only six months during the off-season, the construction for the Progressive Field Concourse, Concessions and Suite Renovations began immediately following the final home game of the 2015 season and was completed for the opening day of the 2016 season. The fast-track requirements of these projects means close coordination and a collaborative approach are critical. Early partnering through design-assist and phased project schedules allow the team to reduce time in the schedule, provide an early review of specifications and design narratives, and bring cutting-edge technology to the project.
Football Games Continue with Phased Renovations
At M&T Bank Stadium, the work areas were analyzed and classified as “in-season” and “out-of-season.” Gilbane targeted several areas within the stadium where work could occur during the season with very stringent requirements for event days. For out-of-season work areas, we compressed and sequenced all work to fit within timeframes where stadium events would not occur, the priority being the football season games. These work areas could not begin until the football season finished, which included possible home playoff games. Work also had to be completed in time for the following season’s preseason work. This left a slim seven-month window to complete most of the project that would typically fill twice the amount of time. Each separate work area of the stadium was initially planned independently. These individual plans filtered into the master project schedule to help balance crew flow, track material needs and manage schedule demands. These planning sessions were reoccurring, active discussions with critical subcontractors weekly in both group and individual sessions. In addition, to help balance the availability of material, extensive offsite storage locations were used with the various subcontractors to allow for bulk purchase efficiencies and material availability while not overwhelming the limited onsite storage. Ultimately, sequencing sports venue construction allows sports and entertainment clients to maintain operations, even during their season.
There’s No I in Team
Before any construction project starts, and especially when dealing with sports and entertainment clients, extensive planning is critical. We’ve found that collaboration with the owner, the design team and other key stakeholders to create a detailed timeline of key construction dates and the client’s critical milestones is essential. The highly complex TD Gardens renovation had an aggressive completion date for the Bruins‘ October home opener game, but with proper planning all projects were completed on time. Gilbane’s advanced planning and scheduling (APS) and pull plan efforts secured a confident weekly schedule by level. The project peaked with hundreds of tradespeople onsite, nine projects receiving concurrent Boston Inspectional Services Department inspections on multiple shifts, and multiple loading dock shifts.
The New York Racing Association’s 1863 Club broke ground on the first day following the end of the racing season at Saratoga. We completed construction while keeping the safety of the equine athlete paramount. We constructed this in just 10 months to be ready for the racing season. We performed all construction work between racing seasons, meeting strict schedule milestones to allow events to continue throughout construction. Through a collaborative team effort, the 1863 Club was fully operational on July 11, and NYRA and their patrons were able to use the venue on opening day.
This is our preseason. Piecing together a cohesive and attainable schedule is both challenging and exciting. When you throw supply chain issues into the mix, it can create chaos. The good news is, at Gilbane, we like chaos; controlled chaos, that is. We have a team that actively tracks the supply chain. We bring in a winning team, use our experience and market knowledge and find a path to completion for our clients’ game days.
