Mild Winter, 'Aggressive' Schedule Moving New Red Wings Arena Construction Forward
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Sean Hollister stomped his boot on a patch of dirt, as construction cranes hovered around him.
"This is around where center ice will be," he said.
View a 360° photo sphere from center ice on Google Maps.
It was hard to imagine a sleek ice surface replacing all the dirt and steel covering the ground in downtown Detroit on Thursday. But construction on the new Red Wings' arena, as part of the Detroit Events Center, is right on schedule, according to Hollister, who is the construction manager of the project.
Everything is still relatively in skeleton status for now. The shells of three elevator shafts are there. Forty feet below street level, where ice level will eventually be, you can look up and see the basic outline of a circular arena. When everything is done, fans will enter the arena at street level, and above them will be a main concourse and two suite levels.
As part of the larger "Events Center," the arena will join a parking structure and two other buildings (dubbed Buildings AB and C for now) that will house restaurants and shops. Those buildings will have outer facades that better match the history of buildings on Woodward Avenue, according to Hollister.
Hollister also said it had not been determined yet how many levels the parking structure would be, or how many vehicles it would be able to hold. Drilling the deep foundation for that structure will begin in about two weeks.
In addition to the Wings' main ice surface that will be used for games, the facility will also house a full second ice surface, to be used for practice.
The mild – by Michigan standards – winter has helped the process. Although the construction crew has been operating under an "aggressive" calendar, they are still on time to complete the Detroit Events Center by September 2017. The construction crew - comprised of 200 employees, about half of which are Detroit residents - is on a six-day work schedule. Mild weather has kept them from having to move to a seven-day schedule.
"We've been extremely lucky," Hollister said. "The weather has helped us. We've had a lot of luck. It's a lot easier for the connectors and erectors to be able to work when it's not snowing; we don't have to shut down. We've been very fortunate."
