New Bucks arena rapidly taking shape
Rows of seating bowl taking shape
There’s a countdown clock in the trailer office for Mortenson Construction, the general contractor for the new Milwaukee Bucks arena that’s rapidly taking shape in downtown Milwaukee.
The clock read 511 days on Monday, in time with the Bucks’ goal to be open for the 2018-’19 season. But standing at the top of the concourse level — the worst seats in the house — one can experience now how different this arena will be.
Instead of the dizzying climb up the sharply raked upper bowl at the Bradley Center, the new arena is the opposite. Even surrounded by cranes and construction workers, it’s easy to see that the upper level is smaller and closer to what will be the floor. The lower level is wider and larger than that of the Bucks current home, visible just to the south through the steel frames.
“The people who live here who have not experienced basketball in a facility designed for that — it’s huge,” said Denver Callahan, Mortenson’s senior superintendent for the new arena.
Putting more fans closer to the action is a key part of the design of the $524 million arena. The majority of the seats will be in the lower level, compared to the Bradley Center, designed for hockey, where the most seats are in the upper level. The Bradley Center has 10,000 seats in the upper level; the new arena will have 6,000, and 10,000 in the lower bowl.
The arena construction has moved rapidly in the past couple of months, and the swooping, wave-like roofline is taking shape, framed by the towers of curved steel ribs on the north side. Starting in the northwest corner, where the players parking lot will be located, the construction is unfolding in a “radial” or fan-like fashion, Callahan said during a top-to-bottom tour of the site.
A veteran of more than three decades of work on such projects around the country, including four valued at more than $1 billion, Callahan expressed satisfaction with the progress so far.
“Overall, for the winter here in Milwaukee, It’s been very, very good,” he said. “Right now, we’re right on schedule.”
Today there are about 275 workers on the site. That will grow to about 800 at the end of the year, Callahan said.
Callahan praised the professionalism and quality of the largely local workforce at the
site.
“That’s a highly motivated bunch of employees out here,” he said. “Working for the home team. That’s what it’s all about.”
Perhaps the most striking sight of the tour came from the high northwest corner of the arena, looking across the intersection of N. 6th St. and W. Juneau Ave. There are three major construction sites tied to the new Bucks development — the arena itself, the practice facility to the northwest and a parking garage on the north side of Juneau.
Work is rapidly progressing on the “back of the house,” which will house the arena’s electrical, heating and cooling equipment. Getting that in place is crucial, as the building will be enclosed and heated by Thanksgiving, Callahan said.
Several takeaways from the visit:
Workers are pouring and finishing about 10,000 square feet of concrete a day. Early Monday afternoon, crews moved finishing equipment over the freshly poured concourse floor. “They’re using a very aggressive mix” of concrete that hardens quickly, he said.
Two shifts of workers are on the site. The evening crew includes workers who are moving the precast stadia into place — the large step-shaped pieces that form row after row of the seating bowl. One by one, semitrailers roll into the bowl, and a crane is used to lift the long precast concrete pieces into place. About eight such lifts take place each evening, Callahan said.
A “snow gutter” runs along the entire north end of the curved roof, which will be heated to prevent snow from building up and pouring from the top of the massive structure. The snow will melt into the huge gutter and be drained away.
This summer, six large trusses will be erected across the bowl, leading to the building’s “topping off’ ceremony in fall.
Callahan said that Mortenson emphasizes safety on the construction site.
“It’s the first thing we plan for and the last thing that we think of when we go home at night.”