Dome Renovation

[SUFan44]

On May 16, 2008, it was announced that over $150 million in major renovations would be carried out on BC Place Stadium. These included seating replacements, washroom and concessions renovations, and replacement of the ETFE roof with a new retractable roof.[25] The work was done in two phases. The first phase involved upgrades to seating, washrooms, concessions, and luxury suites, as well as the reinforcement of the existing ring beam at the top of the building[26] and was completed in October 2009, in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

An announced budget of $150 million. An ETFE roof. New seats and concessions. Sound familiar?

Lets not forget this original design is essentially a scaled up version of the Carrier Dome. The same contractor/developer. That firm was used as the structural engineer for the renovation, so they were plenty familiar with the building design. Announced in May 2008, it took a little under a year and a half to do the design and construction of the non-roof related renovations. An additional year to do the roof. (2009-2011) A cost overrun of almost 4x the budget. The second phase (the roof) took out the 2010 season for soccer and football. Expect pain and inconvenience and expect a season away from home.

Short-term pain for long-term gain. If this is what the decision is going to be, then it is what the powers that be think will be the best for the future of Syracuse University and its athletic programs. Not to mention the surrounding community.

We have smart people in positions of power now - I'm not worried in the slightest about what the decision will be. It will make the most sense for everyone involved.

 

[CuseOnly]

I have no sympathy for Carrier either...but it is irrelevant. I know that SU has said on multiple occasions that they have looked into it and there is nothing they can do. That's not a guess on my part. I have already said there is likely a threshold of renovations where the building becomes a different building. I don't know what that threshold is. If you read my posts, you will see I didn't gloss over that. Carrier didn't pay "close to nothing". At the time, everyone thought it was a great deal because "naming rights", especially on college-owned facilities, was not in vogue. Carrier was lauded for the generous donation. Many of the counter "arguments" have indeed been emotional. "Carrier has made enough money" ...as if there is something illegal about making what turned out to be a good business deal.

Based on what we are hearing, at least at this point, that a structure will be built over the Dome and around the Dome.

If that is true, just for argument's sake, I bought naming rights in perpetuity to a building. The building owner after 30 years decides he/she is going to completely build a new building over the original structure forever changing it inside and out. I would be very nervous about my naming rights deal and whether it still would hold up because the building is now completely different.

My guess would be that if they execute a completely covered solution and only use the seating of the Dome and Field areas and everything else is new...The Carrier Name will no longer be the name of the NEW Wegmans Athletic Complex at Syracuse University with Seating and AC by Carrier or some such nonsense that The U can use to generate some funds.

 

[dollarbill44]

Based on what we are hearing, at least at this point, that a structure will be built over the Dome and around the Dome. If that is true, just for argument's sake, I bought naming rights in perpetuity to a building. The building owner after 30 years decides he/she is going to completely build a new building over the original structure forever changing it inside and out. I would be very nervous about my naming rights deal and whether it still would hold up because the building is now completely different. My guess would be that if they execute a completely covered solution and only use the seating of the Dome and Field areas and everything else is new...The Carrier Name will no longer be the name of the NEW Wegmans Athletic Complex at Syracuse University with Seating and AC by Carrier or some such nonsense that The U can use to generate some funds.

The Dick's Dome kind of rolls off the tongue.

 

[CuseLegacy]

 

[retro44]

Chris Carlson must have been reading my posts.

 

[Moontan]

Chris Carlson must have been reading my posts.

A lot of .com & local radio story ideas and content originates from SyracuseFan.com posts.

 

[sutomcat]

This is a sobering article. The BC Place renovation went more than 4X under budget in terms of cost and time to complete and they abandoned their initial place to do it with the old dome in place very early on because they determined it was not practical.

If they elected to do what SU wants to do, and build the new Dome around the old Dome still in place, what would the cost have been? How long would it have taken? The one hope is that the retractable roof feature played an enormous role in all the cot overruns and delays and that forgoing that feature will dramatically reduce the headaches and overruns.

But to me, it sounds like the biggest lesson learned from BC Place is that doing the renovation while the old dome was in place was a bad idea.

 

[jr4750]

This is a sobering article. The BC Place renovation went more than 4X under budget in terms of cost and time to complete and they abandoned their initial place to do it with the old dome in place very early on because they determined it was not practical.

If they elected to do what SU wants to do, and build the new Dome around the old Dome still in place, what would the cost have been? How long would it have taken? The one hope is that the retractable roof feature played an enormous role in all the cot overruns and delays and that forgoing that feature will dramatically reduce the headaches and overruns.

But to me, it sounds like the biggest lesson learned from BC Place is that doing the renovation while the old dome was in place was a bad idea.

Yep agreed Tom. Every article written and test case (the few that there are) cited have not led to positive thinking about a plan to build around the existing stadium. Becoming more and more apparent that a season or two will be lost, or the school needs to kick the can down the road and look to build new in the next 10 years. Can't imagine the mess this would make to try and have games on a construction site.

 

[retro44]

This is a sobering article. The BC Place renovation went more than 4X under budget in terms of cost and time to complete and they abandoned their initial place to do it with the old dome in place very early on because they determined it was not practical.

If they elected to do what SU wants to do, and build the new Dome around the old Dome still in place, what would the cost have been? How long would it have taken? The one hope is that the retractable roof feature played an enormous role in all the cot overruns and delays and that forgoing that feature will dramatically reduce the headaches and overruns.

But to me, it sounds like the biggest lesson learned from BC Place is that doing the renovation while the old dome was in place was a bad idea.

BC Dome roof replacement was a cable suspension structure with a fabric material to cut costs way down. Fabric replacement here is just kicking the can down the road even further as snow loads would still dictate high heating bills. Plus they had oil leaking from the lubrication that lubricate the cables and have had leaks already.

 

[CusefanATL]

BC Dome roof replacement was a cable suspension structure with a fabric material to cut costs way down. Fabric replacement here is just kicking the can down the road even further as snow loads would still dictate high heating bills. Plus they had oil leaking from the lubrication that lubricate the cables and have had leaks already.

Didnt JB lecture us about premature leakage or something?

 

[GoSU96]

This is a sobering article. The BC Place renovation went more than 4X under budget in terms of cost and time to complete and they abandoned their initial place to do it with the old dome in place very early on because they determined it was not practical.

If they elected to do what SU wants to do, and build the new Dome around the old Dome still in place, what would the cost have been? How long would it have taken? The one hope is that the retractable roof feature played an enormous role in all the cot overruns and delays and that forgoing that feature will dramatically reduce the headaches and overruns.

But to me, it sounds like the biggest lesson learned from BC Place is that doing the renovation while the old dome was in place was a bad idea.

This is a huge missed opportunity if they go down this road. Stuck with a enormous capital investment on a limited use facility. The ultimate white elephant.

At least BC place is in a prime location to maximize revenues. Surrounded by parking.

And BC place is just a full field stadium, they have an arena across the street for hockey.

Do a new place right here and update the dome usage with the below grade configuration Stade Pierre-Mauroy and the retractable field and you can have football, lax, hoops, hockey, and indoor soccer and lax in the same building. Continual full year use and still plenty of availability for concerts and events.

 

[kcsu]

Soldier field had a took a similar path. Built around the old stadium as it was considered historical. No roof which made things easier still it can be done.

 

[OttoMets]

Soldier field had a took a similar path. Built around the old stadium as it was considered historical. No roof which made things easier still it can be done.

They did shut it down for a full football season, though.

 

[NJCuse97]

Keeping that building active during construction is an ambulance chaser's dream. There is no sense to taking on that risk! Even with the Dome closed during construction, there is still a lot of circulation by students around the Dome to dorms, dining halls, and academic buildings. The risk is enormous, and only made worse trying to add 30,000 people to the mix. Take a look at the crane collapse video I put up. Imagine that happens here on a Wednesday. There is no game in the Dome for the rest of the season. Imagine something similar happens on a Saturday (yes I know they would not be moving large pieces of structure into place on game day, but you don't take huge apparatus like that completely down every night). The school is in expensive lawsuits until 2040. Even a simple "I dropped my knife" or "we were welding" represents opportunity for existing roof tears.

 

[SUFan44]

Keeping that building active during construction is an ambulance chaser's dream. There is no sense to taking on that risk! Even with the Dome closed during construction, there is still a lot of circulation by students around the Dome to dorms, dining halls, and academic buildings. The risk is enormous, and only made worse trying to add 30,000 people to the mix. Take a look at the crane collapse video I put up. Imagine that happens here on a Wednesday. There is no game in the Dome for the rest of the season. Imagine something similar happens on a Saturday (yes I know they would not be moving large pieces of structure into place on game day, but you don't take huge apparatus like that completely down every night). The school is in expensive lawsuits until 2040. Even a simple "I dropped my knife" or "we were welding" represents opportunity for existing roof tears.

Yeah, the more and more we hear about this, the more and more I think there are really only two options:

1) Renovate the dome with a complete evacuation of all home events to other locations for the period of time the renovation would take (1 season I think should be long enough if renovations started in April 20XX and were completed 17 or 18 months later (August-September 20XX+1).

2) Completely new stadium at a new location.

And if you include the costs of demolishing the Dome and building whatever it is you would build in its place to connect the southeast corner of campus with the quad, #1 I think jumps ahead of #2. But that's my novice opinion!

 

[Noexcuse]

Keeping that building active during construction is an ambulance chaser's dream. There is no sense to taking on that risk! Even with the Dome closed during construction, there is still a lot of circulation by students around the Dome to dorms, dining halls, and academic buildings. The risk is enormous, and only made worse trying to add 30,000 people to the mix. Take a look at the crane collapse video I put up. Imagine that happens here on a Wednesday. There is no game in the Dome for the rest of the season. Imagine something similar happens on a Saturday (yes I know they would not be moving large pieces of structure into place on game day, but you don't take huge apparatus like that completely down every night). The school is in expensive lawsuits until 2040. Even a simple "I dropped my knife" or "we were welding" represents opportunity for existing roof tears.

When they built the dome it was pretty much an open construction site. There were always people (students) wandering around. I remember when they were putting in the supports for the third level being up there walking around.

 

[Qbobby]

While that's true, today is 1000% more litigious so the risk of lawsuits are far, far greater. And that's if they actually don't use the dome for that period of time. I can't even imagine how much liability insurance would actually cost if the dome was open to events during renovation of that sort.

 

[NJCuse97]

When they built the dome it was pretty much an open construction site. There were always people (students) wandering around. I remember when they were putting in the supports for the third level being up there walking around.

I was not there, but I can only say this... Times have changed. I have seen guys intentionally rip a piece of clothing like a jacket on scaffolding just so they can get a new one. Often times the site super hands over a check for the assumed value of the jacket if they feel they are potentially exposed (like a bolt cap missing) especially if the alternative is a drawn out process occupying time and dollars. Imagine ice accumulation because scaffolding created a shadow, and a student slips and falls. It seems pretty simple and possible. One of those a week might even be expected, but then there are the other hazards of a construction site to deal with. The beauty of the Dome construction in part was that it was fast!

 

[NJCuse97]

Don't forget most of the academic destination on the west campus is the law school.

 

[orangeinjersey]

You cant have active cranes moving steel with civilians below. The cost for a GC to take on that liability will blow the budget. As much as I hate to say this, a new dome somewhere on South is probably making more sense.

 

[Orangello]

When they built the dome it was pretty much an open construction site. There were always people (students) wandering around. I remember when they were putting in the supports for the third level being up there walking around.

I understand that students even "borrowed" lumber from the Dome construction site in order to build bunk beds. Not that I would know anything about this sordid behavior

 

[reedny]

You cant have active cranes moving steel with civilians below. The cost for a GC to take on that liability will blow the budget. As much as I hate to say this, a new dome somewhere on South is probably making more sense.

As long as it's "on-campus" and a viable plan for the Dome is part of the campus master plan (giant research center?), I'm all ears on this. I Don't expect it to happen b/c of the cost of re-building from scratch ... supposedly $500M at least, and SU has previously said it would require public funding and isn't an option.

A new bubble and some improvements to the lighting and sound systems would cost the school about $25 million. The school priced a brand-new off-campus arena at hundreds of millions, deeming the expense too costly without public support, Syverud said in February 2015.

If this remains true, SU's facing Scylla and Charybdis: 1) too expensive to build new without massive state support and concurrent loss of control and off-campus siting; or 2) gut the Dome and eat construction dust for 2-3 years while FB and BB become vagabonds.

 

[TexanMark]

Is this an appropriate time to say I wish Miner would've shut her pie hole (downtown stadium)?

 

[reedny]

Is this an appropriate time to say I wish Miner would've shut her pie hole (downtown stadium)?

This is probably one of the reasons SU soured on the off-campus option. The local political CF that ensues every time a public project is proposed. Then again, that's the problem with public financing .. local in-fighting, loss of control and one compromise after another.

 

[dollarbill44]

You cant have active cranes moving steel with civilians below. The cost for a GC to take on that liability will blow the budget. As much as I hate to say this, a new dome somewhere on South is probably making more sense.

It happens every day in Manhattan.

 

[retro44]

Is this an appropriate time to say I wish Miner would've shut her pie hole (downtown stadium)?

Cuomo wasn't aware of the new stadium proposal until it became public. Somewhere out there there is a statement from him saying so. It was Gross and his partner Mahoney pulling a fast one.SUNY upstate just spent $40million on a new building that was located on that bogus stadium proposal footprint, a building I spent a month in at the end of the project.