Post by golden on Mar 12, 2007 16:03:57 GMT -7
ARLINGTON, Texas - In this great expanse, with construction workers here and there, fork lifts scurrying about, crane operators moving beams and what not into place and the dust pretty much unsettled, there's this rough piece of concrete poking out of the ground, almost as if the result of a random spill rather than filled with obscure significance.
In the center of the little slab is a round, copper-looking plate, maybe three or four inches in diameter, with an X stretching to the limits of its circumference.
Never has X marks the spot meant more.
For right here, right on this X, and you would have to know it was there to ever find it, is dead center of what will be the 50-yard line in the Dallas Cowboys new stadium.
The temptation is too much. You got to stand on it, the epicenter of this colossal project, one that began a little more than a year ago in April of 2006 with one shovel in the ground, the start of excavating an incomprehensible 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt out of this bowl dug 50 feet below ground level.
You look, slowly turning the full 360 degrees, and the magnitude of what Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and the City of Arlington are building becomes overwhelming. This place is going to be massive. Maybe out of this world.
We've been told how Texas Stadium would fit inside the new stadium, ticketed for completion by the start of the 2009 season. They didn't lie. Fit, and then some.
We've been told the length of this structure, measuring from the ends of those signature arches stretching from east to west, will be a quarter mile. They did not exaggerate. This stadium seems to be creeping east, ever closer to Ameriquest Field.
We've been told the width of this $1 billion stadium is 750 feet, which is but a mere number until you stand in the middle of what will become the largest stadium in North America. Then you comprehend. The width, mind you, will exceed the length of two football fields placed end to end.
We've been told the Statue of Liberty can fit under what will become a retractable roof, and they've now decided the retractable portion will be made of opaque material so daylight can shine through even when the roof is closed. That means from the X we stood on to the top of the stadium will be 320 feet - the length of a football field, straight up.
There are logo flags about two-thirds the way up the six towering yellow cranes standing 254 feet tall, requiring the crane operators to climb the 250 steps every day on the way to work. The logos mark the top row of seats in this 2.3 million square foot structure - more than a half-million square feet larger than the Arizona Cardinals' brand-spanking new University of Phoenix Stadium. The roof steel, to our understanding, will fit just over those towering cranes.
We're talking gi-normous, not to mention the task of building this structure being taken on by HKS Architects, one so large it would overwhelm the weekend deck builder.
"Plan, plan," said project safety director Steve Gray, our tour guide earlier this week. "Can't get caught by surprise."
For those not fortunate enough to drive down the huge ramp into the bowl, you really can't tell how far along the project has come. Remember, the stadium's ground floor is 50 feet below the concourse level. So what you would see above ground is the stadium reaching the fifth level at the southwest corner. That would mean, in places, there would be three more levels to go.
But while the levels are being stacked, there are water pipes and air ducts being strapped into place on the field level.
And you also are starting to get an idea where a few of the stadium's features will actually be. Like Gray was able to identify just where the Cowboys locker room will be, and showed us the ramp that will cut right through the field level club where the players will enter and exit the playing field at the 50-yard line from underneath the stands.
There will be space inside the stadium on the ground level for extra-special VIP parking, and the massive corridors running under the seating inside the stadium will be big enough for 18-wheelers to drive through. Yep, that big, and enough space for not only a visitors locker rooms, but also a locker room for the Dallas Desperados, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, the officials and smaller ones which can be used to facilitate teams with fewer players, such as for basketball events.
But just know this stadium is starting to take shape, with some 700 workers carrying out the various jobs, and Gray said that number should more than double by the project's peak working days. By time the stadium is completed, it's projected some 7,000 people will have worked to build the stadium.
So just know that about a year into this three-year project, there is more going on than meets the eye, and once inside, standing smack-dab in the middle, the enormity of this stadium will make even your eyes grow.
_________________
Drew Pearson belongs in the Ring of Honor!