[Back to List View] As seen in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch April 2, 2004 ALL-STAR TEAM Veteran stadium builders sprint to finish the new Cardinals park in 27 months. BY JACK NAUDI By the start of the 2006 season, the St. Louis Cardinals must have a new stadium – a sparkling venue in which the team might hold the All-Star Game two years later. It’s a race against time, weather, steel prices and even geometry. To win, the Cardinals picked an all-star team to design and build the as-yet-unnamed stadium. The triumvirate of veterans has worked collectively on dozens of stadiums and arenas. One name is familiar in St. Louis: architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc., which designed the stadium. Then there’s John Loyd, hired by the Cardinals to oversee the $387.5 million project. Though he has a permanent home in Alabama, his chosen career path – helping sports teams to build stadiums – defies permanency. He has built five big-league stadiums, living for a few years in each town. The third is Hunt Construction Group of Indianapolis, the top builder of sports and entertainment venues in the nation. HOK’s work is largely done, but the other two must be on top of their game for the next two years. They’ll synchronize the comings and goings of up to 2,000 construction workers on a site smaller than four square blocks. “Our largest task is making sure that people are managed, they’re coordinated and they’re all pointing in the right direction,” said Sid Perkins, project manager for Hunt Construction. And that must be done within a construction schedule so tight that a poorly timed rainstorm or a single late delivery of steel could unravel it. In short, HOK, Loyd and Hunt are trying to make a sprint out of what should be a marathon, the construction of a complex, 1.3 million-square-foot structure. Tight schedule The 27-month construction timetable elicits some concerns among contractors signed to work as well as others, such as Alberici Constructors of Hillsdale, that still hope to land a contract. “It’s a very stacked-up schedule, and it makes it a little bit onerous,” said Steve Olson, senior vice president of business development for Alberici. “If the schedule gets behind (on one part of the job), it can create some problems for other work.” At least one fairly prominent change has been made to keep things moving along. The red-brick exterior – designed to duplicate the historic grandeur of the early days of major-league baseball – won’t be composed of individual hand-laid bricks. Instead, a relatively unusual construction component for the St. Louis region will be used: a thin brick embedded onto huge panels that will be raised into place by cranes. The process is faster than laying each brick by hand with mortar. And it’s one that doesn’t sit well with masons, who will yield the exterior brick work to carpenters. “I’d like to have seen the original design go through,” said Don Brown, business manager for International Bricklayers Union Local 1 in St. Louis. “We would have had a ton more work.” But he isn’t complaining too much. The interior masonry, which accounts for more than half the brick work, will be hand-laid. “It’s still going to be a good masonry job,” Brown said. Sharply rising steel prices also created a short-term problem. Alberici had been tapped to fabricate the steel and erect the frame that will give the stadium its shape and strength. But the company told the Cardinals and Loyd that it couldn’t deliver the steel at a guaranteed price. So, a Texas firm willing to set a fixed price got the contract. “We could not come to an equitable arrangement,” Olson said. Just doing it For the three stadium players, concerns and small controversies are almost routine on stadium projects. The trick is making sure they don’t flare into project- or budget-busters. Experience helps, Loyd said. “All of these people have done this a number of times before,” Loyd said at his Busch Stadium office, just a few feet from a 20-foot-deep construction pit. “There’s a lot to it that you can only do from doing it before.” Take, for example, dealing with curves and angles. Architects love them because they add distinctive touches to a building. Construction people prefer four rectangular walls and straight lines. They especially favor repeating construction elements. The new Cardinals stadium has almost no simple construction elements. It’s curvy, and nearly nothing about the design is repetitious. And then there’s the most notable complexity: The new stadium doesn’t fit on its existing site. A large section of the wall beyond center field won’t be completed until Busch Stadium is demolished after the 2005 season. Construction crews will have a breathtakingly short five months to complete that section before the start of the 2006 season. “It’s a feat to try to give the community something that’s on par with the tradition of the St. Louis Cardinals,” said Jim Chibnall, an HOK principal. In the spotlight It’s also a feat that the local construction industry has embraced. An out-of-town company might be in charge of constructing the stadium, but nearly all the tradespeople and subcontracting companies hail from the St. Louis area. Local construction leaders say no current construction project is more critical to them. Certainly, there are bigger projects. For example, the Lambert Field improvement effort is nearly three times more expensive. Metro-Link’s cross-county expansion arguably is more complicated. But neither of those projects rivals the public profile of a new baseball stadium. “The ballpark is going to be a showcase for the construction industry with the time frame and the conditions we will be working under,” said Jerry Feldhaus, executive secretary and treasurer of the Building Trades Council of St. Louis, which represents about 40,000 union construction workers. Feldhaus doubles as co-chairman for PRIDE of St. Louis Inc., a coalition of construction unions, general contractors and building owners working to resolve common concerns. PRIDE wants to promote the national image of the St. Louis construction industry. “We want to show that St. Louis can do things right and we can do things effectively,” said Joe Rinke, a PRIDE co-chairman who represents building owners. Rinke figures that the construction industry can be used as an economic development tool. “We would like to bring more development to the St. Louis area,” he said. “My personal feeling is we’re lagging behind. We need to show the world that this is the place to come. And this is a great opportunity to do it.” PRIDE’s first goal is to motivate the industry, from the dozens of subcontractors to the hundreds of tradespeople who will spend the next two years working on a stadium that’s expected to last at least half a century. It shouldn’t be too difficult, said Steve Schoemehl, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1 in St. Louis. “I still talk about the time that I spent on the (Edward Jones) Dome, when it was built,” Schoemehl said. “That was a big deal for me….It’s like having your hand in a piece of history.” Schoemehl also revealed a trade secret. Behind electric panels and interior walls at big projects – in places likely to be seen only if there is a major renovation – electricians often scrawl their names. The new Cardinals stadium, will be etched with many unseen names, Schoemehl figures. “It’s like a kid putting his name in concrete,” he said. Subcontractors share in the excitement. At least 50 local companies are likely to get a share of the stadium construction. Jimmie Miller has one of the smallest contracts at $105,000. His firm, Miller Contracting Services Inc. of St. Louis, will work on part of the Busch Stadium demolition and help with safety coordination. Though he has the usual concerns associated with a project, like getting paid on time and scheduling, this job is different than the others. “I’m pretty excited about being a part of history in helping tear down Busch Stadium, and I’m happy about being involved in building a new ballpark for the city of St. Louis,” he said. “I think that this is something our kids can look forward to.” Pulitzer Inc., which owns the Post-Dispatch, and Pulitzer’s chairman, Michael E. Pulitzer, are part owners of the Cardinals. Their combined stake is slightly less than 4 percent. Building the ballpark Start dates for the construction phases of the new St. Louis Cardinals stadium: Dec. 19, 2003: Groundbreaking, followed by utility relocation; 8 months to complete March 12: Substructure, including excavation and support footings; 7 months to complete May 10: Concrete floor; 12 months to complete October 7: Interior; 15 months to complete October 25: Steel support beams; 10 months to complete January 13, 2005: Exterior brickwork and other features; 10 months to complete October 2005:* Demolition of Busch Stadium; at least 1 month to complete January 11, 2006: Playing field; 2 months to complete *Work will begin after the last Cardinals game, whether regular season or playoffs Source: John Loyd, owner’s representative on the project