My, Oh My! Ballpark Roof Bid Beats Estimates Redmond Firm Wins Contract To Erect Retractable Ceiling
The retractable roof on the new Seattle Mariners ballpark can be built for $3.5 million less than architects originally estimated, stadium board officials have learned.
The low bid for structural steel and erection for the ballpark’s roof came in at $39 million on Thursday, prompting a collective sigh of relief from officials of the baseball team and the Public Facilities District overseeing the $414 million project.
“Symbolically, politically, financially, it has always been the big one,” Mariners vice president Paul Isaki said of the roof. “It wasn’t so long ago that people feared this day so much they suggested we don’t do the project at all.”
Bids for the tricky roof steelwork ranged from $39 million to $51.5 million. The lowest came from The Erection Co. of Redmond, Wash.
Tom Gibbs of the Public Facilities District board said the firm won the bidding because “they asked the most questions and reduced the unknowns to a minimum.”
Adam Jones, the company’s president, said he can do the job in eight months. Until the bids are final in several days, he wouldn’t disclose how it will be done.
Other projects by the firm include KeyArena, Century Square, Two Union Square and the Gateway Tower in Seattle.
Rising steel prices forced architects to redesign the roof last year. They reduced the number of sliding panels - from five to three - that will roll on rails at the northern and southern sides of the ballpark. The new design cut back the amount of steel and $35 million from the cost.
Ken Johnsen, facilities district executive director, said the low bid gives him confidence the project can be built with the $414 million or so available from special taxes, lottery games and the Mariners.
He didn’t provide a current budget estimate, saying that will be presented later in the month, but acknowledged he’ll be dipping into a $40 million-plus contingency fund if there are cost overruns.
“We’re putting together a budget,” he said. “We’ve been looking forward to the bid opening so we can tie down our projections.”
Johnsen said the total cost of the retractable roof - including the estimated $14 million cost of mechanisms for rolling it back and forth - likely will be about $60 million.
Construction estimator Michael Morrison, who served on a task force that reviewed the ballpark for King County, said the roof bid removes an element of risk from the project.
“This is the biggie, this is the lion’s share of it,” he said. “This is the portion of the project that had the most uncertainty and risk. When you remove the roof, it’s just like other ballparks.”
The stadium is one of three retractable-roof ballparks in the works - others are in Milwaukee and Phoenix - and could be a model for future parks with its comparatively simple, freestanding design.
Other bids for the roof steel came from Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City. The facilities district will review the numbers to verify their accuracy before finalizing the contract with Jones’ company.