The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Roof won’t be ready when stadium opens
Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s roof won’t be ready to retract for Falcons’ first exhibition, regular-season home games.
Construction delays have thrown “mechanization” of the retractable roof at the Falcons’ new home behind schedule.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s retractable roof won’t be ready for action when the Falcons open their new $1.5 billion home next month.
Construction delays have thrown “mechanization” of the roof behind schedule and will force the stadium to debut with the roof closed, Steve Cannon, CEO of Falcons parent company AMB Group, said Tuesday.
Cannon said the organization doesn’t know at this point when it might be able to hold events with the roof open, although he expressed confidence it will be this year.
“We fully expect to have several events in the open-roof position this season with the Fal- cons and Atlanta United,” Cannon said.
But he said the roof will be closed when the stadium debuts with a Falcons-Arizona Cardinals exhibition game Aug. 26 and will remain closed beyond the Falcons’ first regular-season home game, Sept. 17 against the Green Bay Packers.
Alt h ough there long have been questions about whether the complex and costly roof would be operating completely when the stadium opens, Falcons officials previously had insisted they would have the ability to open and close the roof for events from the outset.
Cannon divulged otherwise at a Georgia World Congress Center Authority board meeting Tuesday.
“As we come into new information and new obstacles, we figure out what impact it’s going to have on schedule,” Cannon said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It became clear, based on the construction moves of the roof we have had, based on some of the delays we have had, that we didn’t have time to automate the roof.”
The one-of-a-kind retractable roof is designed to open or close in approximately 12 minutes with eight steel pan- els — called petals — moving in unison. The roof has been moved from open to closed, or vice versa, several times during the construc- tion process, and the latest such move was in progress tests and alignments. Tuesday afternoon. HowTwo more c on s truc- ever, the construction moves tion moves are planned by are quite different than what mid-August. must happen to routinely Cannon said contractors open or close the roof for originally scheduled 40 days events and quickly adjust beyond the final construc- for weather changes. tion move to complete the
The construction moves mechanization and automainvolve moving each 500-ton tion that will allow the roof petal separately in a painstak- petals to move in unison. But ing process that has required that process now will require as long as two days to com- more than 40 days, he said, plete to allow for intricate because the work will have to be sandwiched around a heavy schedule of Septem- ber events in the stadium.
That timeline would indicate the roof won’t be fully operable until well into Octo- ber at the earliest and perhaps later.
“That 40-day process was predicated on a building that was not yet open,” Cannon said. “Now we’re going to have to do that around a pretty crazy start-up sched- ule . ... So I don’t have a date where I can say it will be fully automated.”
In the meantime, “We’d rather just have great events under a closed roof,” he said.
Eleven sports events are scheduled for the stadium during its first month of oper- ation, including two Falcons exhibition games, one Falcons regular-season game, six Atlanta United matches and two college football games.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium was scheduled to open March 1, but issues associated with steelwork for the roof have been blamed for three delays — first to June 1, then to July 30, then to Aug. 26.
“Almost every one of our timelines over the course of the last year has been compressed,” Cannon said. “We
not been able to compress the mechanization of the roof. Essentially, we put that off . ... Until we have full control where we can say we can open or close that roof quickly, we’re going to keep it closed.”
The Falcons have played their home games indoors at the Georgia Dome for the past 25 years, and the prospect of outdoor football long has been one of the attractions of the new stadium for many fans.
Cannon insisted that opening the stadium without the option of opening the roof isn’t a big disappointment to the Falcons/Atlanta United organization.
“It’s a spectacular stadium,” he said. “We’re going to wow our fan base when the stadium opens. And when we have a mechanized roof, we’re going to wow them all over again.”