If you're going to spend 60 MILLION DOLLARS on a high school stadium...

[Tejano Jawg]

You'd better know how to pour concrete.

Some of you may have heard about the massive stadium of Allen Texas High School (north of Dallas, and home of our own Jonathan Williams). As if spending that much on a high school stadium isn't crazy enough, the design flaws are shutting it down next year.

They feel it's unsafe, so Allen will play all their home games at a couple of the Plano stadiums. For each game, Allen will have to write Plano a check for over 5 grand. I'd say the architect and builder have some 'splaining to do!

[snoot hoggy hog]

Blame it on the Dick brothers.

[lahawg1]

I'd say the architect and builder have some 'splaining to do!

Nope, falls on the shoulders of the Civil Engineer, eng designs strength and architect makes it look decent.

But yeah, there is some splaining to be done for sure....

[Magic_Hogg]

Lawsuit.  No way a municipality spends that kind of $$ on a stadium to have to pay a neighboring city to play your games. 

[JansterZ71]

Large lawsuit in the making

[go hogues]

Clearly designed by an Aggie.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

What are the flaws?

[hoglady]

It looks beautiful from the air when landing in Dallas.
That's just unbelievable - bet there's some pretty mad folks in Allen.

[hoglady]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/60m-texas-high-school-stadium-172151222--spt.html

This article says the architectural firm and builder have each put up 1 million to start the repair. Both of their insurance companies are refusing payment.
This should get interesting.

"The facility is the flashiest example of the grandeur of high school football in Texas, where the ''Friday Night Lights'' have been glamorized in books, movies and television.

But the district had to close the stadium in February after extensive cracks were discovered in the concourse. An outside consulting firm hired by the district has found further building code violations, including parts of the stadium where seating capacity exceeds the legal maximum by more than 70 percent."

[Magic_Hogg]

I suppose the next ? might be why a HS needs a 60 million dollar stadium.  Don't get me wrong - the City of Allen can build whatever it can pay for end of story.  Just questioning the judgment.

[Pigsknuckles]

Season ticket sales have been suspended for the 2014 season. Pardon the naivety. I always knew that HS football was big medicine in Texas. But until I read that, I had no clue of just how big.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Somebody might need to give the project structural engineer a ring.

[Pigsknuckles]

What are the flaws?

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Allen-ISD-to-close-60-million-stadium-for-repairs-259925081.html

Saw a similar story on NBC this morning. This one seems to have more detail.

[Hawgzinbowlz]

Somebody might need to give the project structural engineer a ring.

I would think the structural engineering firm is in consultation with their insurance company AND a pack of attorneys, to try and mitigate the damages as much as possible. If the contractor executed the design according to the SEs specifications and there are no civil engineering problems (compaction design/execution/testing)... The structural engineering firms rear end is in the wringer, and their wallet has popped out in the open position.

" GO HOGS "

[Bubba's Bruisers]

I would think the structural engineering firm is in consultation with their insurance company AND a pack of attorneys, to try and mitigate the damages as much as possible. If the contractor executed the design according to the SEs specifications and there are no civil engineering problems (compaction design/execution/testing)... The structural engineering firms rear end is in the wringer, and their wallet has popped out in the open position.

" GO HOGS "

I believe this architectural firm has SE's on staff. 

[Hawgzinbowlz]

I believe this architectural firm has SE's on staff.

It appears that PBK Sports is an umbrella company with architecture, engineering and other services available. The structural engineering side of PBK sports is not sailing on smooth waters. Lots of attorneys and  millions on the table.

" GO HOGS "

[termite]

Sounds like a spin off of DALLAS, the long running TV series.

[RazorWhacker]

Somebody might need to give the project structural engineer a ring.

He's in the witless protection program..

[B501]

sounds all too familiar, remember ole alltell arena?

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/print/article/66738

[Magic_Hogg]

Ok - ready for my two-cents?

Some of the partners in the firm needed more money - eg - they have boat houses to build, private school to pay for, etc.  So, they tell the city of Allen they can do it.

After the contract is signed and $ for the account comes in, they give it to some poor yack who is thinking "we can't do this - what were they thinking?"

And presto.  Not that I was ever some yack in that position.  (Ok - I have been - not engineering but you can transpose the above into anything).

And in the end, they'll blame the yack.

[Rzbakfromwaybak]

What a nightmare.  $60 million spent on a stadium, & they still can't play there. Allen is also going to lose the money for lost admissions/season tickets for the entire 2014 season.  Bunch of unhappy people in the Allen area.

Which will be slightly offset....by the now, many happy lawyers in the area....

[go hogues]

To add insult to injury, a buddy of mine who's a grad from there says playing at a Plano stadium would be the equivalent of Razorback fans trying to get excited about playing all our home games at Darrell K Royal or Vaught Hemingway. In other words, there's a little animosity there...

[DeltaBoy]

You'd better know how to pour concrete.

Some of you may have heard about the massive stadium of Allen Texas High School (north of Dallas, and home of our own Jonathan Williams). As if spending that much on a high school stadium isn't crazy enough, the design flaws are shutting it down next year.

They feel it's unsafe, so Allen will play all their home games at a couple of the Plano stadiums. For each game, Allen will have to write Plano a check for over 5 grand. I'd say the architect and builder have some 'splaining to do!

Per the DMN and NBC5 the Contractor , Engineer and their insurance companies are on the Hook for this not the Tax payers.

[DeltaBoy]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/high-schools/high-schools-photos/20140519-photos-cracking-in-60-million-allen-football-stadium-leads-to-season-long-closure.ece

From the pictures I see it looks more like surface cracking caused by the cement drying too fast.  But with out a underneath and some specialized equipment.

[Hawgon]

Ain't nothing cut and dried on this kind of stuff.  That "independent" engineering firm was hired by the city or the school district.  I'll bet you the insurance companies already have two or three on retainer who say that it is normal settling and cracking.

Lots of motivations behind this stuff ranging from, "Our brand new and stupidly expensive palace shouldn't have any cracks at all" to genuine concerns for safety and structural integrity. 

If I had to guess, I would come down on the side of those cracks being unsightly and maybe a bit excessive for what is essentially a brand new building, but not structurally significant. 

That drought of a few years ago caused half the structures in Texas to get some new settling cracks.

[COACHINTEXAS]

The architect has nothing to do with this. This is all on the structural engineer.

[PonderinHog]

Rub some grout on it and play ball!

[PorkRinds]

More proof that they literally can't do anything right in Texas. 

[Tejano Jawg]

Here are pics of the stadium, to give you a better idea of what "high school excess" looks like.





And then...

[DeltaBoy]

The underneath photos shows they used the wrong mix of cement and it was not sealed properly against water and the frezzing weather this winter damaged it.

[COACHINTEXAS]

More proof that they literally can't do anything right in Texas. 

This is all on the structural engineer in my opinion. At least here in Texas, they can coordinate a large project with architectural, MEP, Structural and civil, unlike the F up with the road/bridges not coming together somewhere in Little Rock. And it doesn't take 5 years to do a simple job!!

[chitwnhog]

I wonder how much North Little Rock is spending on the new stadium they are building?

[chitwnhog]

Part of a huge renovation. Doesn't look to be as big as Allen's but appears to be nice.

http://cip.nlrsd.org/assets/ppt_Board-Workshop_Present-copy.jpg

http://cip.nlrsd.org/assets/ppt_Board-Workshop_Presentation_OverallBuilding.jpg

[greasy_corner]

To add insult to injury, a buddy of mine who's a grad from there says playing at a Plano stadium would be the equivalent of Razorback fans trying to get excited about playing all our home games at Darrell K Royal or Vaught Hemingway. In other words, there's a little animosity there...

Although it's outdated, smaller, and unsightly it seems like they would just go back to their old stadium for games this year, instead of playing at a rival's stadium.

We do it twice a year.

[Amityvillehogger]

Poor little tink tink

[Michael D Huff AIA]

It's rare that an architectural related question gets brought up here.  I think the last one that I read had to do with the next phase of renovations at DWRRS. 

I have some insight as to what is going on here because the architectural firm that I worked for when I lived in Little Rock was part of the Alltel arena in NLR.  Don't get excited, we didn't design the thing.  We just performed "contract administration", or in other words we "got it built."  Worked with the contractors on a day-to-day basis, making sure the project got built per the drawings.  Unfortunately for that project the concrete people didn't allow for proper inspections of steel reinforcement locations in the major beams.  The concrete for these was poured in the wee hours of the morning without proper inspection.  The concrete company that won the bid sacked up and took the blame.  They ceased to be in business afterward.

What never made the papers surrounding that project, and the Allen one as well, is the concept of "factor of safety".  All, repeat, all structural engineers design with factor of safety.  This means that whatever design is assembled, it can stand many times the forces associated with that building (live loads, people movement, wind loads, snow, etc.).  10,000 people jumping up and down creates a lot of live load in a structure, and it's variable.  Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not.  Alltel had factors of safety up to 10x in it's design.

Concerning this Allen project, I haven't seen enough photos yet to know if the problems are similar to Alltel.  I saw the structural issues there firsthand.  By the uniform nature of the cracks shown on the plan, it tells me that there is a problem with the concrete mix for the walking surfaces.  That's not a life safety issue.  However, if there are cracks running up walls or near structural columns, all bets are off.

It's a beautiful project, but no project is perfect.  Unfortunately the imperfection with this one is major.

[LZH]

I've never done any jobs of this size, obviously.  But in my experience, when a cluster* like this pops up, 80% of the time it's the general contractor's foul-up.  Yeah, there are engineers who screw up (trust me, I know a few), but a project like this isn't a big deal for a fairly large firm.  Architects do the overall design and have the final say, the engineers do the math/loads, but the GC's are the ones who can be notorious for cutting corners or just generally making mistakes.  If the engineers are truly responsible for a screw up of this magnitude, in other words - if the job was spec'd for that particular tolerance and it was that far off, then it's very likely that someone should have caught it before they started pouring.  Jmo.

[Hawgon]

Is it paid for?  Have the last payments been made?  I've seen cracks in the concrete used as an excuse to avoid making those last two or three million dollar payments before as well.  I saw hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorney's fees and several years of litigation based on that very thing.

In my opinion, it never was more than an attempt (a successful one I might add) to delay payment and settle on a lesser amount in the end.

[LZH]

Is it paid for?  Have the last payments been made?  I've seen cracks in the concrete used as an excuse to avoid making those last two or three million dollar payments before as well.  I saw hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorney's fees and several years of litigation based on that very thing.

In my opinion, it never was more than an attempt (a successful one I might add) to delay payment and settle on a lesser amount in the end.

That may be a good point.  I've literally seen a GC use materials (left over from another job) that weren't approved, threw the metal up and damn-near had part of the building in the dry before the architect came down and caught it.  Guess what happened?  Nothing.  The architect didn't wanna rock the boat with the school district so subs like me had to submit change orders so we could do our job (change orders are good, btw....so I didn't complain too much).

Did that happen in Allen?  I highly doubt it.  But it does happen.

[DeltaBoy]

IMO some areas will have to be tore out and reformed others just need the surface cracks sealed and refinished.

[HogFanatic]

Well it sounds like the architect screwed up the entire design, by designing it in excess of capacity. Furthermore, the Civil Engineers are culpable as well, as they should have been checking, and double checking, and triple checking the foundation of the stadium. The subsurfaces. If the concourse concrete is settling, that is a BIG DEAL. There is no telling how extensive the repairs will be. It's no wonder the insurance companies don't wanna pay. It sounds like a botched job from the get-go.

[ImHogginIt]

I suppose the next ? might be why a HS needs a 60 million dollar stadium.  Don't get me wrong - the City of Allen can build whatever it can pay for end of story.  Just questioning the judgment.

To be fair, included in the $60 million price tag was a $23 million 1500 seat performing arts center, which features its own TV studio and a student-run restaurant. It also includes a number of classrooms for the performing arts. Dance, music, visual arts, and theater have multiple new classrooms as part of that $60 million. Heck the band alone has 700 members so they need lots of space. So it is a lot more than just a new football stadium. But that doesn't get lots of views so the media has always portrayed it as just a $60 million dollar football stadium

[ImHogginIt]

Ain't nothing cut and dried on this kind of stuff.  That "independent" engineering firm was hired by the city or the school district.  I'll bet you the insurance companies already have two or three on retainer who say that it is normal settling and cracking.

Lots of motivations behind this stuff ranging from, "Our brand new and stupidly expensive palace shouldn't have any cracks at all" to genuine concerns for safety and structural integrity. 

If I had to guess, I would come down on the side of those cracks being unsightly and maybe a bit excessive for what is essentially a brand new building, but not structurally significant. 

That drought of a few years ago caused half the structures in Texas to get some new settling cracks.

Unfortunately we've been in a drought for four years now down here. We're about to go to stage 4 water restrictions

[TexHog188]

Went to the McKinney vs Allen game there last season. With the exception of Jerry world, it was the best football venue I've ever watched a game in.  Knowing many people in Allen, and how serious they take all their sports, MAD just doesn't capture what their residents are feeling.  At least our dead cricket infested Ron Poe stadium in McKinney, shared by all three high schools, is paid for.

[Cementhog]

Been in the business of concrete and ready mix for 25 years....two things are guaranteed concrete will get hard and crack......not knowing if this is a post tension pour or not, most of the cracks look like " plastic shrinkage" cracks. Unsightly yes but not structural. A couple of the pictures showed a brick facade  with no visible expansion joint material, as sure way to cause cracks. Unless the test samples taken at the time of pour come back deficient, I would guess that no major work needs to be done. Probably looking at some type of latex bonded overlay to hide the cracks......not that my opinion matters

[PorkRinds]

Been in the business of concrete and ready mix for 25 years....two things are guaranteed concrete will get hard and crack......not knowing if this is a post tension pour or not, most of the cracks look like " plastic shrinkage" cracks. Unsightly yes but not structural. A couple of the pictures showed a brick facade  with no visible expansion joint material, as sure way to cause cracks. Unless the test samples taken at the time of pour come back deficient, I would guess that no major work needs to be done. Probably looking at some type of latex bonded overlay to hide the cracks......not that my opinion matters

With a name like cement hog, your opinion matters a lot to this conversation.   

[PonderinHog]

With a name like cement hog, your opinion matters a lot to this conversation.   

He's the "Mike Irwin" of all things concrete.   

[HogFanatic]

Not that any of this really matters, I mean, I couldn't possibly care less or give two craps about something happening at a high school in Texass, but if the stadium has been deemed unsafe, there is a good reason. People don't go around willy nilly saying that 40 million dollar structures cannot be used for their intended purpose. There are obviously big players with vested interests in this school's stadium. Sounds like a damn waste, if you ask me.

[Big Papa Satan]

but if the stadium has been deemed unsafe, there is a good reason. People don't go around willy nilly saying that 40 million dollar structures cannot be used for their intended purpose. There are obviously big players with vested interests in this school's stadium. Sounds like a damn waste, if you ask me.

[HogFanatic]

It was a response to the guy suggesting this was unsightly, but not structural.

Clever post, though.