MAKE IT WORK: GAME-CHANGING SPORTS VENUE
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Fall 2016 | Story by Roger Slavens Illustrations by Clint Ford
Right next to the Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta, a massive construction site quakes under seven towering cranes and bustles with activity as up to 2,000 workers of all types—steel, concrete, mechanical, plumbing, telecommunications, technology and more—strive hard to keep the project on schedule. There’s a lot on the line: Millions of local sports fans are counting on them to finish this first-of-its-kind, cutting-edge facility by summer 2017 in time for football season.
It really is taking a village to build Mercedes-Benz Stadium, future home of not one, but two pro sports franchises, the new Atlanta United Football Club (football may be in the team’s name but it’s still soccer to most Americans) and the Atlanta Falcons (American football). Helping to govern this public-private cooperative of contractors, city officials, utilities and owners are two companies with strong Georgia Tech ties: Holder Construction Co. and Darden & Company, the stadium’s overall project management firm.
“Building a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose stadium—especially one big enough to accommodate NFL fans—is unlike any other project we’ve worked on in terms of complexity,” says Tommy Holder, IM 79, chairman-CEO of his Atlanta-based namesake company, which serves as the managing partner for the Holder Hunt Russell Moody (HHRM) joint venture in charge of the venue’s construction. “And we’ve had to fit the iconic Mercedes-Benz Stadium into a pre-existing infrastructure while building just a stone’s throw away from another huge facility, the Georgia Dome, which is still open and active.”
Many other Yellow Jackets play key roles on the HHRM team overseeing the myriad aspects of building the stadium. They include Sam Westbrook, IE 99, vice president of mechanical, electrical and plumbing services, and Amanda Atkinson, BC 02, senior manager of sustainable services, as well as Barry Compton, BC 76, division vice president for HJ Russell Construction.
And that’s not to mention the dozens of other Tech alumni working for other companies involved with the stadium project.
Holder’s company was selected three years ago because of its strong reputation as a general contractor for major projects.
“But it isn’t just about us,” Holder says. “We also count on a number of top partners, such as Hunt Construction, which has experience building NFL stadiums with retractable roofs, and HJ Russell and CD Moody, with whom we have extensive experience in delivering major projects in Atlanta, as well as hundreds of specialty trade contractors.
About that special retractable roof: Holder says it’s a very complex undertaking since it’s cantilevered and has to bear the weight of the record-breaking “halo” videoboard that measures 58-feet high and 1,100-linear-feet wide and does a 360-degree full circle of the roof interior. (Stand the scoreboard on end and stretch it out, and it would be the tallest building in Atlanta. It will be the largest scoreboard in the world.)
The roof will open and close like a camera aperture, with eight roof “petals” able to open in less than nine minutes. And when these petals close, they form the unmistakable Mercedes-Benz logo visible from above.
“Seeing the roof come together is incredible,” Holder says. “I don’t think anything like it exists on planet earth, and it’s been a true challenge of engineering.”
Another impressive feature of the stadium’s design will be its exterior skin, which is made of a combination of metal panels and a translucent, high-performance plastic film (called ETFE, for ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) that allows those on the outside to look into the stadium, and vice-versa.
Tasked with the comprehensive project management responsibilities for Mercedes-Benz Stadium is the Georgia Tech-infused team at Darden & Company, whose organization serves as the representatives for the venue’s developer—the Atlanta Falcons Stadium Company. That team includes President Bill Darden, who taught at Tech for a period of time; Senior Directors Kyle Taylor, BC 04, and Chris Holdsworth, CE 05; and Project Manager Whitney Williams, Mgt 15.
“Our team’s primary role as the developer’s representative is to manage the activities of HHRM, the joint venture contractor, and HOK, the architect of record, to make sure they’re delivering per our client’s expectations,” Holdsworth says. “Ultimately, we’re the ones responsible for keeping the project on track and ensuring that the vision of [Falcons and Atlanta United Owner] Arthur Blank is actualized.”
Holdsworth says one of the most important aspects of the new stadium is the emphasis on delivering the best in-game fan experience possible. “One of the challenges for many sports venues is the lack of fan-centric technology and how disconnected attendees sometimes feel during events,” he says. “We’re committed to exceeding the tech expectations of the 75,000 strong that will fill Mercedes-Benz Stadium on a regular basis and ensuring that they maintain the utmost sense of connectivity. Nearly 1,800 wireless access points, over 800 antennas for the distribution of cellphone service, 2,000 digital TV displays, and more than 82,500 square feet of LED video displays throughout the facility are some of the features that will help us deliver on that commitment.”
The game-changing halo videoboard, in the process of being designed and built by display experts Daktronics, will be viewable by everyone in the seats, Holdsworth says, which presents an unprecedented creative challenge. “It’s not just the scale and structure of the board that’s incredibly complex, but how you program and present information and video content upon it because of its unique shape,” he says. “We’re working with highly-specialized firms on how to design this custom content, balancing the need for immersive ‘wow’ moments with expected gameday stats. It’s a true paradigm shift in fan engagement and entertainment.”
The technology teams, partnering with IBM, have had to be careful to create a future-flexible environment for Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s innovations. “Because of the length of this project, you run the risk of adopting certain technologies during development that could prove antiquated by opening day,” Taylor says.
That’s one of the reasons there’s been 4,000 miles (yes, miles) of fiber-optic cables run throughout the facility. For comparison’s sake, that’s 10-times more cabling than the San Francisco 49ers’ newly opened Levi’s Stadium. “We’re using a careful sense of foresight and planning to build in a high level of adaptation for this venue down the road,” Taylor says.
Sustainability has also been a core tenet in the design and construction of the stadium, says Holdsworth. The development team is seeking LEED Platinum status—the highest level of sustainability that can be achieved through the accreditation program. One thing that’s being done to help achieve that rating is the generation of renewable energy at levels near 10 percent of the facility’s total projected energy consumption.
Nearly 4,000 solar panels placed on a variety of surfaces across the stadium’s campus will be used to generate some of this renewable energy, with one example being raised parking canopies. Traditional canopy structures begin to quickly occupy parking-lot footprints and limit capacity, which defeats the core purpose of the space. Holdsworth says.
Atlanta-based Quest Renewables’ QuadPod Canopy, which was developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, was used for a portion of the stadium project because of its less obtrusive vertical supports. This translates into a more optimized parking layout and efficiencies in material and installation costs, he says.