Construction of a new $524 million, multi-purpose arena is underway in downtown Milwaukee. Dubbed the Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center, the arena will replace the aging Bradley Center and serve as the new home of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team.
Wisconsin's New Sports Arena Will Be ‘Smart, Connected & Sustainable’
Mortenson Construction is managing the lifting plans on the jobsite, and the company has employed a number of Manitowoc crawler cranes since construction started in November 2016. Two Manitowoc 999s were used in March to lift all of the arena’s structural steel segments, with the heaviest being a 6-ton cantilever beam that was lifted to a height of 125 ft.
In May, Dawes Rigging & Crane Rental, a member of the ALL Family of Companies, provided two Manitowoc 16000 crawler cranes to the site. Both 440-ton crawlers were configured with 244 ft. of boom to lift 60-ton roof trusses to a height of 125 ft. The cranes were rented to Schofield, WI-based Merrill Iron & Steel and Janesville, WI-based JP Cullen, the contractors working on the roof truss installation. Dawes also helped design the project’s lift plans.
According to Brennan Seeliger, product manager for crawler cranes at Manitowoc, the 16000s used for this job were set up with an extended upper boom point, a configuration typically reserved for building wind turbines.
“Generally, crane operators will use this configuration to achieve added clearance between the boom system and the lifted load when lifting at a high boom angle,” he explained. “It’s not common outside of wind applications. but contractors in certain pockets, such as stadium construction, have found a use for it. It often results in fewer necessary components and quicker assembly times.”
Operators also used Dawe's' 14000 to lift 20.5-ton precast segments. All three cranes worked in close proximity at the center of the arena’s “bowl” and had to work in shifts as a result; the dual 16000s lifted trusses daily until 4 p.m., when the 14000 took over.
Ryan Olsen, safety manager for Mortenson, said the cranes brought ideal capacities from compact footprints, enabling the contracting team to seamlessly coordinate lifts. “The main challenges on this job were the tight project site and, more specifically, the confined space in the arena’s center, so identifying the right cranes for the project was critical,” he said. “A significant amount of coordination was involved since we couldn’t run all of the cranes at the same time. Plus, we had to assemble all roof truss components on the ground before lifting. We needed cranes that could deliver the necessary capacity and mobility to execute our lift plans, and these Manitowoc crawlers did not disappoint.”
Roof truss installation on the Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center was finished in June. Overall construction is due to be completed in 2018.
