While crews operating heavy machinery have spent the past five months on site excavation and extensive underground utilities work to prepare for the future Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers have also been weighing decisions on everything from façade colors to fan seating for Arlington's $1.1 billion retractable-roof ballpark.
Across from the busy construction site, inside a 3rd floor Globe Life Park conference room dubbed "The War Room," paint samples, small stacks of brick and stone, corrugated metal panels, door knobs and even stadium seats in various designs line the tables and walls. Around the room are small-scale models and the latest architectural renderings of the 1.7-million-square-foot ballpark, which fans will see start taking shape as concrete columns that will support the main concourse rising out of the ground this spring.
But while most of the below-ground preparation is nearing completion, there's still much work to do and decisions to be made before the ballpark's inaugural home opener in 2020.
"We've been out here since August working 20 hours a day, seven days a week hauling off more than a million cubic yards of dirt. While that was going on, we were rerouting a 48-inch sanitary sewer line that went through the site and installing utilities that will serve the ballpark and Texas Live! entertainment complex," said Jack Hill, senior vice president of project development. "But there was a lot of planning that took place before the first spade of dirt was even turned."
Since the September 2017 groundbreaking on the public-private ballpark project, decisions have been reached on steel and glass suppliers, elevators and escalators, and even the large translucent panels that will be part of the venue's retractable roof. But the Rangers are still reviewing some architectural elements and the technology that will go into the ballpark, including videoboards and televisions.
"The decisions that will be made here in the next few months are the brick and the stone and paint colors," Hill said. "The decisions we have to make now are primarily the ones on the items the fans will interact with, the types of seats, the colors of the seat and the all the finishing materials."
And while the roughly 40,000 stadium seats haven't yet been ordered, Hill said they will be larger than the current 18-inch seats filled by fans at Globe Life Park.
"They are going to be wider, more comfortable, roomier seats," he said.
In the meantime, crews are wrapping up work on a new 48-inch sanitary sewer line that will serve not only Globe Life Park, the future ballpark and the Texas Live! entertainment complex, but also about one-quarter of the city. Instead of digging an open trench that would have been 45-feet deep, large tunnel boring machines were brought in to install about 1,800 feet of the sanitary sewer line.
Concrete work is also under way. All the foundation elements for the ballpark have been started, including installation of more than 700 piers.
Click here to see the Globe Life Field construction webcam.
And once the installation of utilities is complete, work will begin on the north plaza area between Randol Mill Road and the new ballpark. The plan is for the plaza, which will include landscaping, digital billboards, and a water feature, to be open by September in time for the opening of Texas Live!
"It's really kind of a gateway to Globe Life Field," Hill said. "It will be a place you enjoy taking your kids or walking around with your family. It will be a very pleasant place."
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