Charlotte's New Arena

Charlotte to Welcome New NBA Franchise with $200 Million Arena

By Pam Hunter

Charlotte, N.C., is roaring with excitement and anticipation over the arrival of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats, a new professional basketball team scheduled to begin playing in the fall.

To welcome the team, Charlotte city planners commissioned the construction of a new $200 sports arena that will house the Bobcats, the WNBA's Charlotte Sting and college basketball games, concerts and family shows. The Bobcats will play their inaugural season at the Charlotte Coliseum, then move to the new arena for the 2005-2006 season.

The path to bringing the dream of a new sports arena to fruition was a long one. Faced with the possible departure of the Charlotte Hornets, the city held a referendum in 1999 seeking funding for a number of public projects, including a new sports arena for the increasingly restless NBA team. The referendum failed, and the Hornets departed for New Orleans.

The city was determined to bring professional basketball back to Charlotte, and in 2002, it negotiated a deal with the NBA to bring an expansion team to the city. Part of the deal included constructing a new arena, a project that became a reality when the city found alternative sources of funding that did not require a public vote.

The project broke ground in summer 2003 and is expected to be complete in November 2005. When complete, the 780,000-sq.-ft. arena will include a basketball court, seating for 18,500-20,000, an ice hockey court, concession stands and luxury and party suites.

David Orlowski, managing principal of Kansas City, Mo.-based project designer Ellerbe Beckett, said it was important to city planners that the new building fit into the context of its site, across from a bus station and light-rail system station.

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"It had to establish a sort of representation not only of the history of Charlotte, but also have some character and architectural development that showed Charlotte as a new city of the South," he said.

The building is in a circular shape with a box truss roof structure. Its highlight, visible from the ground and in the sky, is a crescent "C" shape surrounding a large portion of the arena, beginning at the entry lobby and sweeping around the building. "We wanted the building to have some dynamic form to it - the roof form was really part of that," Orlowski said. "It's sort of the fluidity of the forms of the exterior and the envelope."

Another unusual feature is an offset ice hockey court. Unlike some sports arenas, where the basketball and ice hockey teams use the same basic playing areas, the basketball court in the Charlotte arena is located at the center of the building, apart from the ice hockey court.

"The seating bowl is unique because the emphasis is on basketball," Orlowski said. "It's a very intimate seating bowl, where the experience for the fans is going to be spectacular, much like a collegiate event."

The architectural firm also used a mix of brick, stone, metal and glass at the entry level to create a warmer, more transparent look for the building. The use of glass particularly will help bring light from the inside of the building out to the exterior plazas, Orlowski added.

Because pedestrian traffic is a major component to the urban environment of Charlotte, Ellerbe Becket designed the building to accommodate existing pedestrian traffic patterns. Rather than having a single front or back entrance, pedestrians can enter the building on all four sides. Entry will also be easily available for people exiting from the adjoining light-rail station.

"It is considered a building that will be a generator of economic activity and viability for other projects adjoining it in downtown Charlotte, which is really the new trend in sports facility design," Orlowski said. Hunt Construction, headquartered in Indianapolis, and R.J. Leeper Co., a minority-owned Charlotte firm, are the construction managers-at-risk on the project. Like Ellerbe Becket, Hunt Construction, which has built more than 70 sports arenas, ballparks and stadiums around the country, was involved in the project from the outset.

Hunt sought a local construction firm with a good reputation to partner with on the project, and it found R.J. Leeper. "When we do these jobs, we like to work with local contractors because [these are] high-profile jobs for the town," said Scott Blanchard, construction manager for Hunt.

Additionally, Hunt/Leeper made a conscious decision to hire as many local contractors and subcontractors as possible. "Part of our agreement is to make sure that we get the kind of local participation that is important to the city and to us as local contractors," said Ron Leeper, president of R.J. Leeper Co.

The city has a goal that 15 percent of subcontractors be small, local firms, Leeper said. "We are currently meeting that goal requirement, and we believe we will exceed that as the job goes on," he added.

The project is fast-track. "It has about a 26-month schedule, which is about all we ever get for these arenas," Blanchard said. Because of the schedule, Hunt/Leeper is hiring subcontractors shortly before the work is expected to begin. "We are buying work just barely ahead of time of what we want, and then we get them working and under contract," Blanchard added. To date, the construction team has completed site demolition, some site utility relocation, excavation work, installation of the deep foundation and deep underground plumbing, utility work and the placing of the perimeter foundation walls.

The contractor expects to complete the concrete superstructure by the end of August, and will then turn to the installation of the roof steel, which will rest on a ring beam at the top of the building. Work crews expect to complete the roof some time in December or January.

In the meantime, contractors will also begin work this summer on the building's exterior. "As we're putting the roof on, we will be putting the walls and the sides of the building on," Blanchard said.

Staying on schedule with so many subcontractors working on the project has required teamwork, Blanchard said. "When you get rolling, you've got 400-500 people onsite [at one time], and everybody needs to have a clear direction," he added. "The earlier you can purchase the work, the earlier you can have discussions about how everyone's going to be in which areas, and make sure that the work goes in the proper sequence. [As a construction manager], you've got to keep that orchestrated."

He said some of the work of subcontractors had to be resequenced because in November workers found more rock than they anticipated in the ground at the project site.

"We had to do some blasting of some rock, which had some scheduling impact," Blanchard said.

Despite the slight delays caused by the unanticipated rock found on the site, the project remains close to its original schedule and budget. The rising cost of construction materials has had an impact on subcontractor prices, but those should not negatively affect the overall project cost, Blanchard said.

"We have bid some work after the rise in prices, so some of our numbers were a little higher than expected, but people have taken that into account, and it's been incorporated into their contracts," he said. He added that most of the steel for the project was purchased before the current explosion in prices.

Useful Sources:

For more information about Charlotte's new arena, readers may visit: http://www.nba.com/bobcats/charlotte_arena_quick_facts.html

Project Team:

Owner: City of Charlotte
Operator: Charlotte Bobcats/Charlotte Sting; Charlotte Coliseum Authority
Construction Manager: Hunt Construction Group, Indianapolis, and R.J. Leeper Construction, Charlotte
Architect: Ellerbe Becket Architects and Engineers, Kansas City, Mo.
Concrete Contractor: Baker Concrete Construction, Orlando, Fla.
Electrical Contractor: Port City Electric Co., Mooresville, N.C.