ALLEGIANT STADIUM
NO BLACK HOLES
Considered one of the most connected stadiums in the world, it has a 40GB
fiber optic line from Comcast, who provided 227 miles of fiber and more than
1.5 million feet of copper to support over 2,400 screens, 1,700 Wi-Fi 6 access
points, and Allegiant Stadium’s Distributed Antenna System (DAS).
“There were a couple of options to provide this connectivity, either through
antenna located under the seats, which would be very expensive as you don’t
get great coverage from each so we would need thousands of these points
throughout the bowl. To streamline this, the team chose Matsing’s ball antenna
array. They are designed to be up in the steel structure near the catwalks. They
range from 3ft to 6ft in diameter and there are 24 of these set within the
cantilevering canopy, which provides signal throughout the stadium in a more
precise way,” says David Graue, associate vice president at HNTB.
There are three scoreboards, supplied by PrismView, with the main display
over 12,000ft² (1,114m²)and the other two at just under 6,000ft² (550m²) each.
On the exterior of the building facing the I-15 freeway there is a media mesh
that will have 24,000ft² (2,230m²) of digital imagery.
Responsible for constructing the demanding
project was Mortenson Construction, who also praises
the design-build benefits.
“The design-build approach offered its benefit to
the schedule with the ability to produce multiple
permit packages to accommodate it. We essentially
had to dig a hole in the ground relatively quickly and
get our foundations poured out quickly, so while the
rest of the design was still evolving we were able to
quickly to pull together a design package on some of
the critical scopes of the work we needed to get started
on right away. It was a very fast track nature with
multiple permit packages to enable us to get this done
quickly,” explains Eric Grenz, vice president of
operations at Mortenson Construction.
Mortenson had also crossed paths with the Raiders
back in Carson when it was offered the opportunity to
construct that proposed stadium, but had to decline as
it was finishing off the Minnesota Viking’s U.S. Bank
Stadium. With the project now in Vegas, Mortenson
was able to deliver but decided to team up with local
Las Vegas contractor McCarthy as a joint venture.
“The design-build approach offered its benefit to the
schedule with the ability to produce multiple permit
packages to accommodate it”
Eric Grenz, vice president of operations, Mortenson Construction
“This job was put out there on the market for only
a select few contractors to pursue and the Raiders
selected us, on a non-compete basis, and that was due
to experience and trust between us. Our history with
McCarthy is very long, and we have similar cultures to
the company. We are very selective of other contractors
to joint venture on and we have enjoyed a number of
JVs with McCarthy over the past couple of decades.
Mortenson’s sports expertise coupled with McCarthy’s
local experience in Las Vegas was certainly the right
team to assemble,” says Grenz.
From the ground up
When it came to building the intricate steel structure in
the desert, it isn’t as easy as simply digging in the sand.
The crews first had to deal with a compacted layer of
dirt beneath the soil with a concrete-like composition
taking its toll on machinery and time.
“Some of the challenges we had early on were
anticipated, such as the amount of caliche, which is we
what we call ‘mother nature’s cement’, a really hard soil
that required a lot of blasting to excavate nearly 900,000
(Top left) The sliding field tray
will enable the natural grass
turf to grow in sunlight
(Middle) The flame and
peristyle end is a symbol for
both the LA Coliseum and
former Raiders owner Al Davis
(Left) Vector Foiltec took much
care to perfect the unique foil
configuration for the ETFE roof
www.stadia-magazine.com June 2020 19
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