Approach of Winter a Big Factor in Stadiums Race

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The New York Sun

As the Yankees and the Mets make their playoff stretch runs, the prospect of approaching winter has construction crews working full blast on the city’s two new baseball stadiums.

Getting ahead on the interior construction of the Bronx and Queens structures — from the concession stands to the clubhouses, the front offices to the press boxes — will likely be a key factor, construction experts say, as the teams push for a smooth transition into the new facilities at the beginning of the 2009 season, just 19 months away.

For the Mets brass, the possibility of a late-season collapse by the ball club, fueled of late by horrendous defense, an anemic bullpen, and the awakening of an offensive juggernaut in a Philadelphia Phillies team hot on their trail, is likely more of a reason to lose sleep than the progress at the $800 million Citi Field. The Mets yesterday opened up the construction site to reporters, showing off the progress on the shell of the stadium: About half of the 1.2 million Wisconsin-made bricks have been installed, and roughly 65% of the concrete that will form the foundation of the 45,000-seat stadium has been laid. Much of that concrete forms the recently completed 360-degree concourse that will allow fans to circumnavigate a professional baseball stadium for the first time in city history. Plans for the new Yankee Stadium feature a similar concourse.

Stretching imposingly into the heavens in right field, the steel beams fabricated to create Citi Field’s future promenade level, a slick term for the upper decks, are taking shape as concrete now coats a majority of the structure. With 75% of all the steel that will form the stadium installed, the Mets are confident that all 12,500 tons of heavy metal will be in place by the end of the year.

“The more of this building and facility we can get enclosed so that we can do the interior work during the winter months will help us,” the Mets’ chief operating officer, Jeffrey Wilpon, said yesterday.

“Hopefully we get a little cooperation from the weather,” the project manager overseeing the construction for the Queen’s Ballpark Co., Richard Browne, said at a press preview yesterday. “By year end we should be done with our steel and concrete operation.”

Construction crews are gunning to complete a colossal brick building that would house the organization’s front offices, as well as retail and restaurant space with doors that would open up to a revitalized Willets Point section of Queens, where the city is hoping to build a mall.

Both clubs are still working on intricate electrical systems that will fuel the lights and numerous attractions at both new stadiums, which include still-to-be-named restaurants, family entertainment areas, and luxury box seats.

Messrs. Wilpon and Browne yesterday said the electrical work at Citi Field, which will provide 27,000 volts of electricity directed throughout the ballpark via five separate voltage rooms, is complete.

With the cold weather coming, the Mets expect to bolster the current workforce of roughly 450 craftsmen, contractors, and laborers by about 350 employees.

Just more than six miles to the west in the Bronx, the Yankees are mounting a comeback in the standings of historical proportions, riding the momentum sparked by blue chip prospects and hot bats. Visible behind Yankee Stadium’s white façade, construction is taking shape on what will be the most expensive baseball park ever built, at more than $1.2 billion.

With just about three months until the first official day of winter, the surrounding façade that will form the perimeter of the new Yankee Stadium is yet to be completed. A large swath, about 100 feet long, lies barren between two hulking walls of concrete, and views into the stadium show no evidence that any of the interior or the 50,000 planned seats are near completion.

Two Yankee electricians, who were interviewed by a reporter on Tuesday as they exited the construction site of the new stadium for a lunch break and asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs, said four separate crews were currently working on electrical aspects of the stadium.

The Yankees have refused to provide interviews with those involved in the construction of the new stadium. A spokeswoman for the Yankees, Alice McGillion, said, “We are on schedule with construction, on budget, and fully expect to be operational and ready for opening day 2009.”


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