Legacy Of Big Eight Endured Test Of Time

More than a thousand men and women built the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, but eight people made sure it was done on time and on budget.

The Big Eight range from a crusty 58-year-old who built Seattle’s Kingdome to a baby-faced engineer just starting his career.

For 18 months most of them worked 12-hour days and six-day weeks, and missed supper and family outings. The money was sweet, but not as sweet as the prestige and the honor of constructing The Building.

To each worker, the Spokane Arena means something different - a career pinnacle, the fulfillment of a dream, a legacy. To them all, it means one day telling grandchildren: “I built that.”

Jerry Schlatter is looking for a new job.

When the Spokane Arena opens Sept. 16, Schlatter’s job is over as project manager for the city Public Facilities District.

Schlatter started as a consultant, a hired gun, and became the owner’s point man for the $62.2 million project. He was the final say over the general contractor, architect, 33 subcontractors, 15 consultants and scores of suppliers.

When the project seemed to stall, Schlatter gave it a kick in the rear. When it sped away like a runaway train, the 58-year-old reined it in.

His job wasn’t to be liked. It was to build Spokane’s premier sporting and entertainment venue and make it a fixture for the next half century.

The Oakesdale, Wash., native and University of Idaho architecture graduate started his career 30 years ago as an urban planner.

In the mid-1970s, he managed construction of the then-$70 million Kingdome, an arena that would cost a quarter-billion dollars to build today, he says.

Schlatter isn’t easily excited or impressed. The Spokane Arena was nothing compared to the Kingdome.

In the early 1970s, midway through the Seattle project, the contractor couldn’t hack it. A young Schlatter renegotiated a new contract with another builder and got the project back on track in 30 days.

“I was the lightning rod on the Kingdome,” he says. “You gotta get momentum on a project like this and keep it going.”

What does Schlatter think of the nearly finished product?

“This is going to be a good quality building, a signature building for Spokane for a long time,” he says. “What we’ve got here is the appropriate scale for the market.”

The entire Garco Construction Co. team embodies the personality of its owner, Tim Welsh.

The 50-year-old possessed enough brashness and sassiness to bid the construction contract, even though his firm had never built anything as elaborate as an arena.

It was the Vietnam vet’s biggest professional gamble. He compounded the risk by choosing to have his crew pour all the concrete and erect all the steel.

Taking on the concrete and steel - a rarity among general contractors - could have been financial suicide because of the labor costs involved. But the decision helped Garco narrowly outbid another Spokane contractor and five outside firms.

Call it hometown pride.

“We really didn’t want to see an outside contractor come in and build our arena,” Welsh says. “Being a local contractor and a guy who grew up a mile from the (old) Coliseum, it was exciting.

“It was our staff and our field people. Every one of them, as long as they’re living in Spokane, they’ll be able to take their grandkids in and say, ‘Hey, I did this, I did that.’

“That’s probably as big a benefit or reward to all of us.”

The only controversy during construction was a birthday party Welsh hosted for himself and partner Frank Etter. On June 30, about 600 well-wishers gathered in the unfinished arena to celebrate the Garco principals’ 50ths with beer and barbecue, even though the building did not yet have an occupancy permit.

Undaunted by less-than-flattering media coverage, Welsh jokes about the first act to open the Arena.

“The first event is my next party,” he grins. “I’m having a construction workers party on Sept. 8.”

Welsh promises to have an occupancy permit.

Jeff Warner was thrilled with being assigned to the Arena project as ALSC Architects’ manager.

It was a chance to replace a menace to the eyes and ears.

“I thought the Coliseum was grossly inadequate because of the sight lines and acoustics,” he says. “It’s an opportunity I’m glad I have because they don’t come that often with this type of building.”

At 38, nearly one quarter of Warner’s career as an architect has been spent on the Arena. He’s waiting for public feedback.

What he hears so far is uplifting: The Arena looks no bigger than the old Coliseum. That’s an architectural compliment, especially since the Arena is twice the size.

“There shouldn’t be a bad seat in the house,” he says. “I hope we’ve put a lot of energy into making it accessible. Hopefully, we’ll get bigger and better concerts because of it.”

While excited, Warner, a West Valley High School and Washington State University graduate, is also apprehensive. The building’s success has not been determined yet.

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” he says. “I’m curious to see if the women will think there’s enough toilets. I’m sensitive to criticism. I know you can never do a building that everybody is going to like. But that (bathrooms) is one area that got a lot of attention.”

Wes Luster, 48, Garco’s Arena project manager, is a clone of Welsh. In a 15-minute interview, he uses the word “aggressive” a half-dozen times.

It was Luster who put together the bid package and has been on-site manager since early 1994.

“The schedule on this job was very aggressive,” he says. “We’re not the type of people who look back. We’re the type of people who look forward and make it happen.”

The reality of playing such a large role in a signature public building bore down on Luster when his 5- and 7-year-old grandchildren drew a picture of him building it. They stuck the drawing on his office wall.

“The Arena is a legacy as far as I’m concerned, and I’m very proud to bring my grandchildren through and show them what grandpa did. It’s pretty awesome, a beautiful facility.”

It was the most ambitious project in his 25-year career.

“The management of Garco has always been an aggressive management and ready to take on just about any challenge that comes to them.”

Garco is one big family. Employees, spouses and their offspring play softball, raft whitewater and run Bloomsday together.

“We all make it fun, too,” Luster says. “We all know each other personally. We all know each other’s families. Fortunately, all of the families are very understanding about the demands placed upon each of us as far as hours go.”

Hollis Barnett, 26, looks like an extra on Baywatch.

But the lanky blond was charged with a sobering task in this, only his fifth professional year.

Barnett, a project engineer for Garco, kept track of the budget and the progress being made by his firm and 33 subcontractors. He headed eight construction divisions.

“This is the very beginning of my career,” he says. “It’s pretty amazing. Every job you’re on, you learn a lot of new things. I’ll just tuck it under my belt as more experience.”

Barnett likes to stand back and gain perspective on the Arena. The outer skin, he says, hides the arduous intricacies that were the focus of his and all the crews’ lives for a year and a half.

“The biggest liability on a job like this are labor costs. It makes the job a little more difficult from a management standpoint,” he said.

The most exhilarating - but terrifying - moment for Barnett came during the erection of the first truss, one of eight huge bands of steel that support the roof.

The 190,000-pound, 265-foot-long behemoth was hoisted by a pair of huge cranes. More than 200 bolt holes had to line up.

They did.

“It was a perfect fit,” Barnett says. “It was just really a proud moment for the ironworkers.”

John Blakney, 32, another Garco project engineer, started out building bridges for another company.

The University of Washington civil engineering graduate helped construct the .85-mile-long viaduct over Wallace, Idaho - the span that when finished in the early 1990s ended Interstate 90’s 25-mph run through the mining town’s center.

While more spectacular, bridges are not as gratifying as the Arena, he says.

“It’s such a monument to Spokane,” Blakney says. “Bridges are concrete and steel. This building has every single type of material you’d like to put into it. I think they tried to keep everyone happy. Actually, it makes it a neat building, too.”

Blakney is the kind of builder who’s constantly showing off his work.

“I drive my wife crazy,” he says. “Every time I drive down the road, it’s ‘I built that.”’

His wife’s response: “I know. I’ve heard it before,” Blakney says.

John Tortorici, 45, is Garco’s general foreman on the Arena project.

He’s been dreaming of helping replace the Coliseum since talk of a new arena surfaced 15 years ago.

Tortorici regards the project as the summit of his 25-year career.

“It’s the jewel in the crown,” he says.

Tortorici is Garco’s concrete expert. It was his most complicated pour - 1,700 mixer-trucks’ worth in beams and columns and curves like he’d never seen or done before.

“Any critical mistakes and we’re into hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace it,” he says. “I was a little concerned about how aggressive the schedule was.

“It was our biggest job ever,” Tortorici says. “But I knew we could do the work, and I knew we had the wherewithal to man the job.”

To dig the hole for the Arena, Garco project superintendent Steve LaRue first had to remove an existing concrete slab on the site.

It belonged to the old Northwest Milling Feed Co., owned by his father, Guy LaRue, in the early 1960s until he sold out for Expo 1974.

The slab was located where the ice floor now sits.

“As a kid, I pretty much grew up down there,” says LaRue, 45, who has been with Garco 18 years. An ironworker by trade, LaRue spearheads all work activities and coordinates with the owner and architect.

One of the highlights for him is that the Washington state version of OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Act - said the Arena job was as safe as any ever in the state.

Inspectors used to sit with binoculars in unmarked cars to catch violations, like a worker without a hard hat or an employee not tethered while working off the ground. They found only one minor lapse.

“Everything’s been a challenge down there from moving the first pebble to five minutes ago,” LaRue says. “My life’s dedicated to this project.”

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