Halifax Stadium Discussion

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Empire

Excellent work fenwick. I like the compact design you have shown. A box truss like this would keep the roof height to a minimum. The Qwest roof is a good alternative. I was just looking at an aircraft hanger the other day and thought that roof truss system would be perfect for this stadium.

HALIFAX STADIUM
http://halifaxstadium.ca/

Thanks for the comment Empire and cormiermax.

I have been thinking about this a great deal. I think that keeping the roof height to a minimum is a real advantage.

I think that the way that I have the model drawn with very large roof trusses is the only way to have columnless design. The roof truss size, based on all the models that I have checked, is going to be massive in order to span the stadium and provide complete coverage of the stands which I think is very important. It would likely be curved at the top but be as high as 90 - 100 feet in the center for the truss alone (above the height of the roof) such as is the case for the Qwest Stadium. However, stadiums that have huge roof trusses like this are very expensive. I am afraid that what will happen, is that it will be found that this system will be so expensive that Halifax will go with only a short overhang to minimize cost like so many other cities have done. The alternative to large trusses is huge cantilever supports along the exterior of the stadium which is very unattractive and will also be expensive. There are other alternatives like thin cement shell which would look good but will also be costly and require specialized cement forms and scaffolding. (I am not an expert on the topic of stadium roof design, I have just read a lot about it in the past couple of months).

I would like to do another slightly modified model with a few columns in the upper tier of seats which will provide the support for a cantilever roof (like in the Toronto Exhibition Stadium http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ArchitecturalModelOfExhibitionStadium_Aug25-05.jpg ). This won't be a balanced cantilever system like the Exhibition Stadium but will provide a great deal of support for a much more slender truss along the front of the roof. The number of obstructed views should be minimal with a minimization of the external stadium structure compared to external cantilever supports.

This idea of using a few columns is something that you mentioned previously, and that I have thought of many times. Perhaps the idea of spending many millions of dollars to have completely unobstructed seats just isn't practical especially when it not only greatly increases cost, but also results in a very obtrusive stadium design.

[Empire]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Thanks for the comment Empire and cormiermax.

I have been thinking about this a great deal. I think that keeping the roof height to a minimum is a real advantage.

I think that the way that I have the model drawn with very large roof trusses is the only way to have columnless design. The roof truss size, based on all the models that I have checked, is going to be massive in order to span the stadium and provide complete coverage of the stands which I think is very important. It would likely be curved at the top but be as high as 90 - 100 feet in the center for the truss alone (above the height of the roof) such as is the case for the Qwest Stadium. However, stadiums that have huge roof trusses like this are very expensive. I am afraid that what will happen, is that it will be found that this system will be so expensive that Halifax will go with only a short overhang to minimize cost like so many other cities have done. The alternative to large trusses is huge cantilever supports along the exterior of the stadium which is very unattractive and will also be expensive. There are other alternatives like thin cement shell which would look good but will also be costly and require specialized cement forms and scaffolding. (I am not an expert on the topic of stadium roof design, I have just read a lot about it in the past couple of months).

I would like to do another slightly modified model with a few columns in the upper tier of seats which will provide the support for a cantilever roof (like in the Toronto Exhibition Stadium http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ArchitecturalModelOfExhibitionStadium_Aug25-05.jpg ). This won't be a balanced cantilever system like the Exhibition Stadium but will provide a great deal of support for a much more slender truss along the front of the roof. The number of obstructed views should be minimal with a minimization of the external stadium structure compared to external cantilever supports.

This idea of using a few columns is something that you mentioned previously, and that I have thought of many times. Perhaps the idea of spending many millions of dollars to have completely unobstructed seats just isn't practical especially when it not only greatly increases cost, but also results in a very obtrusive stadium design.

Perhaps partially covered seating, c/w columns and only on one side of the stadium for now. This would be a larger version of Huskies stadium.

HALIFAX STADIUM
http://halifaxstadium.ca/

[Keith P.]

Would you need light towers or would they mount on the box?

BTW, columns are not that bad when designed intelligently. New Comiskey Park uses columns to support the overhang but puts them in the aisles to minimize obstruction of views. Look here, in this photo of the place by DiggerODell of baseballfever.com:

[-Harlington-]

looks great
hope it becomes a reality.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Would you need light towers or would they mount on the box?

BTW, columns are not that bad when designed intelligently. New Comiskey Park uses columns to support the overhang but puts them in the aisles to minimize obstruction of views. Look here, in this photo of the place by DiggerODell of baseballfever.com:

We think alike. I am currently changing the model. Although I haven't had time to change the model aisle locations, this would be the best location for the columns. I really like this solution and I think that it will be a cost effective approach. In fact the person (Ho Nguyen who is doing the physical model) insisted that I change the roof design because he disliked it so much. I am glad that he did.

I had the lights attached to the roof and a scoreboard at the two ends plus goal posts in the latest version of the model with the roof trusses. It will take a couple of days to copy them to the newer version.

I have attached an updated photo showing the current progress. The Google Sketchup program is great for this.

[grillmeister]

Please allow an outsider to jump in and feel free to correct any misconceptions I may have. This will be setailed so I'm apologizing in advance.

Would it make sense to seriously approach the project from a combination of the ideas I've seen floated here? I say this with several thoughts in mind:

1. A reasonably sized facility similar to the "temporary" stadium to be used by the BC Lions for the 2010 season (http://www.cfl.ca/article/lions-to-play-outdoors-in-2010) could be built on centrally located property to enable use by a variety of tenants such as St. Mary's University, Dalhousie University, a CFL franchise, a potential MLS franchise and outdoor concerts, monster truck events etc.
   
2. Funding of the above could be split between St. Mary's (they need a new one anyway), Dalhousie University (probably a lesser share due to their lack of a football porgram for now), the federal government, the HRM and the province of Nova Scotia and any private interests that can be shown the benefit (naming the facility "Keith's Stadium", for example)
   
3. Involve the general public by funding a consortium of private individuals to fund a CFL team and begin the funding for either future stadium improvements or a new permanent stadium sometime in the future perhaps in the north end of the region. This could be accomplished by selling "shares" in the CFL franchise which grant limited time or permanent season ticket rights (still have to be bought each year at subscriber rates). For example, at $500 an individual would obtain a three year right to his or her seat, $1000 would buy a ten year right to the seat and a $2500 purchase would grant a lifetime right to the seat, transferrable to family members in perpetuity. Do the math: selling 20,000 shares at an average of $1,000 would provide $20,000,000 toward the funding and operating of a CFL franchise with approximately 25% of that amount going into trust for future capital projects.
   
4. Identify a locally based majority owner or partnership group for the CFL team that has deeper pockets and more staying power than the dorks who own the Argos. The shareholders would still have the right to vote in a couple of board members to work with him/them and in turn the owner(s) would have the right to buy the shareholders' voting rights out (not their season ticket rights) by injecting an equivalent amount of cash into the franchise.

Following a scenario like I outline here would enable:

1. A stadium happens NOW to satisfy what appears to be a number of perceived needs beyond the CFL idea.
   
2. It happens without breaking the bank and soaking the taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars.
   
3. Two post-secondary institutions gain access to and control over a new facility they could help design to meet their needs as well as that of a professional sports team or two.
   
4. Halifax enters professional sports in a big way by demonstrating corporate support, governmental support and more importantly a large wave of public support for everything to do with it. Revenues from the CFL will only help the marketplace, create a number of new jobs, stimulate even more tourism, and who knows what other benefits. With a facility perhaps things like the Commonwealth Games become a little less daunting.

I'm coming at this from experience. In Calgary, McMahon Stadium is owned by the University of Calgary and plays host to the U of C Dinos, the Calgary Stampeders, the Calgary Colts (Prairie Junior Football) as well as high school football championships, lacrosse, all levels of soccer and other events including concerts. There is a non-profit McMahon Stadium Society that operates the facility on behalf of the university. As for the idea of shares, it's how we saved the football team in 1986 during the "Save Our Stamps" (S.O.S) campaign when the team was about to fold due to previous mismanagement and low attendance figures. The team has long since recovered and the subsequent owners eventually bought out the shareholders, but it injected a ton of cash at the time and laid a solid season ticket base that continues to grow today. I worked for the team's front office from 1987 to 1990.

By the way, Fenwick, is there a chance of obtaining the sketchup file? I have an alternative idea for the stadium roof that I'd like to try fitting onto the design you've already come up with.

Good luck to you all - it would be great to have a CFL team in Halifax. By the way, call the team the "Halifax Schooners" instead of Atlantic - nothing says Atlantic Canada can't have more than one team eventually so why limit your thinking?

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by grillmeister

Please allow an outsider to jump in and feel free to correct any misconceptions I may have. This will be setailed so I'm apologizing in advance.

Would it make sense to seriously approach the project from a combination of the ideas I've seen floated here? I say this with several thoughts in mind:

1. A reasonably sized facility similar to the "temporary" stadium to be used by the BC Lions for the 2010 season (http://www.cfl.ca/article/lions-to-play-outdoors-in-2010) could be built on centrally located property to enable use by a variety of tenants such as St. Mary's University, Dalhousie University, a CFL franchise, a potential MLS franchise and outdoor concerts, monster truck events etc.
   
2. Funding of the above could be split between St. Mary's (they need a new one anyway), Dalhousie University (probably a lesser share due to their lack of a football porgram for now), the federal government, the HRM and the province of Nova Scotia and any private interests that can be shown the benefit (naming the facility "Keith's Stadium", for example)
   
3. Involve the general public by funding a consortium of private individuals to fund a CFL team and begin the funding for either future stadium improvements or a new permanent stadium sometime in the future perhaps in the north end of the region. This could be accomplished by selling "shares" in the CFL franchise which grant limited time or permanent season ticket rights (still have to be bought each year at subscriber rates). For example, at $500 an individual would obtain a three year right to his or her seat, $1000 would buy a ten year right to the seat and a $2500 purchase would grant a lifetime right to the seat, transferrable to family members in perpetuity. Do the math: selling 20,000 shares at an average of $1,000 would provide $20,000,000 toward the funding and operating of a CFL franchise with approximately 25% of that amount going into trust for future capital projects.
   
4. Identify a locally based majority owner or partnership group for the CFL team that has deeper pockets and more staying power than the dorks who own the Argos. The shareholders would still have the right to vote in a couple of board members to work with him/them and in turn the owner(s) would have the right to buy the shareholders' voting rights out (not their season ticket rights) by injecting an equivalent amount of cash into the franchise.

Following a scenario like I outline here would enable:

1. A stadium happens NOW to satisfy what appears to be a number of perceived needs beyond the CFL idea.
   
2. It happens without breaking the bank and soaking the taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars.
   
3. Two post-secondary institutions gain access to and control over a new facility they could help design to meet their needs as well as that of a professional sports team or two.
   
4. Halifax enters professional sports in a big way by demonstrating corporate support, governmental support and more importantly a large wave of public support for everything to do with it. Revenues from the CFL will only help the marketplace, create a number of new jobs, stimulate even more tourism, and who knows what other benefits. With a facility perhaps things like the Commonwealth Games become a little less daunting.

I'm coming at this from experience. In Calgary, McMahon Stadium is owned by the University of Calgary and plays host to the U of C Dinos, the Calgary Stampeders, the Calgary Colts (Prairie Junior Football) as well as high school football championships, lacrosse, all levels of soccer and other events including concerts. There is a non-profit McMahon Stadium Society that operates the facility on behalf of the university. As for the idea of shares, it's how we saved the football team in 1986 during the "Save Our Stamps" (S.O.S) campaign when the team was about to fold due to previous mismanagement and low attendance figures. The team has long since recovered and the subsequent owners eventually bought out the shareholders, but it injected a ton of cash at the time and laid a solid season ticket base that continues to grow today. I worked for the team's front office from 1987 to 1990.

By the way, Fenwick, is there a chance of obtaining the sketchup file? I have an alternative idea for the stadium roof that I'd like to try fitting onto the design you've already come up with.

Good luck to you all - it would be great to have a CFL team in Halifax. By the way, call the team the "Halifax Schooners" instead of Atlantic - nothing says Atlantic Canada can't have more than one team eventually so why limit your thinking?

I uploaded one copy about a week ago which you can modify. I will upload the current model in a few days once I have completed a bit more work. Try searching Halifax stadium.

Thanks for your input.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by planarchy

Did you live in The Bijlmermeer? Interesting part of the city for sure - somewhat of a never-ending housing experiment.

No, I lived in Slotervaart on the west side of the city about a 20 minute tram ride from the city centre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotervaart

It was near Vondelpark and Oosterpark and a really cool area to live in.

[fenwick16]

What if to keep the roof cost down, the stadium had some support columns in the upper tier such as below. The columns could likely be placed a bit higher up in the stands and be in the middle of aisleways. The completed model with goal post, lights and scoreboards at each end is attached also. This has been uploaded to Google 3D Warehouse (search for Halifax stadium). You will need the free version of the Google Sketchup program to view it.

[Empire]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

What if to keep the roof cost down, the stadium had some support columns in the upper tier such as below. The columns could likely be placed a bit higher up in the stands and be in the middle of aisleways. The completed model with goal post, lights and scoreboards at each end is attached also. This has been uploaded to Google 3D Warehouse (search for Halifax stadium). You will need the free version of the Google Sketchup program to view it.

It's ideal. Compact and affordable. The forum has columns, Huskies stadium has columns and Halifax Stadium can have columns too. If you polled people I think they would say I would much sooner have columns then have no roof at all.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by Empire

It's ideal. Compact and affordable. The forum has columns, Huskies stadium has columns and Halifax Stadium can have columns too. If you polled people I think they would say I would much sooner have columns then have no roof at all.

Why not just make the roof out of a taut material as opposed to a solid stucture. It would be easily retractable and could be supported by a similar size skeleton.

It would also cost alot less and prove to have other good features.

I don't know what kind of material is used for this type of thing, but I think there is probably some type of plastic.

[fenwick16]

I might actually have a physical model of this for when I go down on January 18 that I can take with me.

In the end, this most likely will not be the actual stadium design but it is a starting point so that others can state what they think is important in a stadium.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

Why not just make the roof out of a taut material as opposed to a solid stucture. It would be easily retractable and could be supported by a similar size skeleton.

It would also cost alot less and prove to have other good features.

I don't know what kind of material is used for this type of thing, but I think there is probably some type of plastic.

I think that the problem will be the snow load requirements and wind resistance. I have thought about this also, if there was a way to set up a roof that was light weight and could be removed quickly then it wouldn't need to be so sturdy.

I think in reality the roof could be designed with fewer columns that are further back, or even no columns like at the Canad Stadium in Winnipeg, it has an overhang of about 75 feet which would cover about 75% of the seats. How about have the columns at the very last 10 rows of seats so that all the seats will be covered and there would only be a few obstructed seats near the top. Also, there might be a way to cover all of the seats with a columnless design at an economical price. If HRM would include us as an HRM sanctioned committee then I could phone companies such as Reid Steel in the UK to see how costly it would be with and without columns for a cantilevered roof. I could also phone companies that design self supported domes since these designs seem to be lighter construction than the cantilevered roofs. If a dome type construction could be used which has the field open then it might be an alternative.

In the end, it might not be practical to have all the seats covered at a reasonable price. However, that would be a disappointment.

How about a permanent sturdy roof that has no internal columns that extends 75 feet over the stands and then an additional section that is a canopy that extends another 30 feet that could be removed in the case of hurricanes or during the winter to avoid snow loading requirements? This would provide protection against sun and rain for say 9 months of the year when the stadium gets most of its use. Similar to what is done on restaurant patios. Something like this:

[Keith P.]

I'm not trying to be funny with this, but it is a serious question: with a roof that is open in the middle like that, how do you do bird (especially pigeon) control? It would seem to me that they would be roosting under the roof in great numbers, and the result would be extremely unpleasant. Any insight as to how other stadiums of similar design do this?

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I'm not trying to be funny with this, but it is a serious question: with a roof that is open in the middle like that, how do you do bird (especially pigeon) control? It would seem to me that they would be roosting under the roof in great numbers, and the result would be extremely unpleasant. Any insight as to how other stadiums of similar design do this?

This is a good point; one that I hadn't thought of until now. I had a bird problem in my home and I read on the internet that an effective way to keep birds out is with netting. So I think that this would have to be incorporated into the design since otherwise the roof would become a breeding ground for various birds.

[hfx_chris]

There's all sorts of interesting ways to keep birds off of structures, the easiest being netting (as suggested by fenwick) or chicken wire on the underside of the roof so there's nowhere for them to get in.

[fenwick16]

This might be the most economical solution (see image below). A cantilever roof system with a roof overhang of only 70 feet or less. The additional 50 feet to the edge of the field could then be covered with a removable canopy (represented by the tan colored roof section) securely attached to the permanent roof. If high winds are expected it could be removed and it could also be removed during the winter, similar to what is done with many restaurant patios throughout Halifax. This design would provide columnless viewing of events.

If the endzones were finished then the end zone seating section could also be covered in a similar manner. This leads to the idea of having a canopy system that would completely cover the stadium field for concerts and other events with a removable canopy that could be set up in a days time.

[fenwick16]

Councillor Dawn Sloane has graciously set aside 2:00 PM on January 18 2010 to meet with us about the trust fund. I sent out private messages to 26 others about this meeting. So far there are 5 others and myself who plan to attend. I am still waiting to hear from several others.

Councillor Slaone stated that she would bring this topic up with some other councillors and has forwarded the email correspondence on to Mayor Kelly. I think that this is a great opportunity to possibly move forward with the thrust fund so that we can actually start raising money for this project.

Thank you Councillor Sloane for your interest in the stadium project.

[DigitalNinja]

That's great to hear, good that someone is taking a proactive approach.

[fenwick16]

meeting on 18th at 2pm City Hall

invited Hendsbee, Uteck, Watts and Mayor

I received this message from Councillor Dawn Sloane regarding the meeting next week., Monday January 18 at 2 PM.

I am hoping for a good turn out to show support for this topic. Initially, for this meeting I am hoping that we will get the go ahead on a trust fund through the HRM. In my mind this would be the first step towards actual construction of a stadium.

We will have to wait to see what the councillors and Mayor have in mind. It is great to see that an HRM stadium has not been forgotten.