Nothing gets sports fans on the edge of their seats like a game that goes down to the wire. On the CFG Bank Arena project in Baltimore, the design and construction team faced its own thrilling finish, recently reaching substantial completion with a buzzer-beater effort. The $250-million, 422,000-sq-ft project, which is being developed by Oak View Group, required pulling off a major renovation of the former Baltimore Arena in under a year. Through an agreement with the city and the Baltimore Development Corp., the team faced a tight timeline and a firm completion date, all while navigating supply chain issues, inflationary pressures and a difficult labor market. Despite the daunting challenges, the team met its deadline, giving it enough time to host a college basketball tournament in February and shows by touring acts such as Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles in April while still completing punch list items.

“Most people, when they heard about the project, thought we were absolutely stone cold crazy,” says Tim Leiweke, chief executive officer of Oak View Group (OVG). “As it turns out, the move was a good one. I understand there are people that were skeptical, and I’m glad we weren’t.”

The schedule pressures stemmed from the city’s commitment to continue hosting the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association’s Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament at the arena, which takes place annually in mid-February. Although the 1960s arena could host the CIAA tournament and other events, it was unable to accommodate the needs of most touring acts. In November 2020, the city issued an RFP to modernize the arena. OVG submitted a bid and was awarded the project in February 2021. The agreement called for substantial construction to be completed between February 2022 and February 2023, in time for the CIAA tournament.

OVG’s decision to submit a bid was an educated one, says Paul Young, senior vice president of project management. Before joining OVG, Young worked on numerous stadium and arena projects, including the renovations of Madison Square Garden and the Kia Forum, formerly The Forum, in Los Angeles. Drawing on his experience from those renovations, Young recruited many of the same players for the Baltimore project, including SCI Architects. Clark Construction, which built the Kia Forum, was also drafted by the team.

“The first thing I did was pull together the team that worked on the Garden and the Forum,” he recalls. “I called up Murray Beynon [principal at SCI Architects] to see what we could do. He’s one of the most creative architects I’ve worked with when it comes to seeing the possible in the impossible.”

The project team was challenged to deliver a state-of-the-art arena by renovating the building rather than opting for all new construction.
Photo courtesy of Oak View Group

Clear the Stage

The main hurdle with the existing Baltimore arena was its proscenium stage—a permanent stage typically seen in theaters. It included structural walls on the sides and above the stage, which created backstage areas. Young says most modern touring acts bring their own staging, which requires an open layout. The stage location also prevented using the backstage area for loading shows in and out. The arena had only one loading dock door available, and Beynon says it sometimes took days for touring acts to load in and out. “It was no wonder touring acts weren’t attracted to come to the arena,” he says. “They could have been in two other cities during that time.”

By removing the proscenium stage, the team could add additional loading bays behind the performance area and open the layout to accommodate modern touring demands. However, the strategy would also require removing the stage’s structural walls. The team worked with Severud Associates to design a girder that would transfer the loads to new columns pushed out and toward the back of the stage area. “That was the key to making the whole thing work,” Young says.

With a plan in place, OVG submitted its bid and was awarded the project in February 2021. With the CIAA tournaments scheduled for February dates, the team had roughly one year for design and preconstruction. Construction could commence after the tournament ended on Feb. 27, 2022, and needed to be substantially complete in time for the 2023 tournament.

A critical component of the SCI design was “re-aisling” the seating areas. Beynon says the existing tiers used inefficient spacing that could be tightened up to add more seating. In addition, the back of the seating areas was walled off from the concourse. The design team opened up those areas and added numerous suites. In all, the design increased seating capacity from roughly 10,000 to more than 13,000. “The sweet spot for an arena tour is about 13,000 to 14,000, so unlocking those additional seats was a huge deal,” Young says.

Notably, the design also enabled OVG to add seats while retaining 98% of the existing tiers, saving significant budget dollars and schedule. “If we couldn’t solve that, it would have put a huge encumbrance on renovating the building,” Beynon says.

During demolition of the ceiling, crews discovered asbestos materials. Scaffolding was added to aid in abatement activities.
Photo courtesy of Clark Construction Group

Early Teamwork

Given the high risk of missing the schedule, Clark was brought on from the beginning to work with SCI through design. Although Clark served as construction manager at-risk and SCI contracted directly with OVG, Young says the three parties collaborated as one team. The collaboration proved critical, as supply chain issues created lead times that limited its options. “This was the most design-build GMP I’ve ever done,” Young says. “Through precon, it was a constant three-way conversation. SCI’s team would say it was going to design a system and would get instant feedback from Clark about lead times. They knew quickly if they needed to select something different. It was one of the best collaborative efforts I’ve ever experienced.”

Throughout the project, Young says the team needed to continuously monitor lead times and make adjustments as needed. In some cases, the team leaned on long-term supplier relationships to find solutions. “Manufacturers were 30 weeks out on air handlers, and that wasn’t going to be done in time,” he says. “I had a relationship with Gil-Bar in New York and was able to get those [air handlers] in time. The catch was, we had to get them a submittal right away, but the system wasn’t even designed yet. The engineers and Gil-Bar literally got on the phone and worked through it.”

Clark followed a similar strategy when it came to sourcing electrical switch gear. Although many manufacturers quote lead times of more than a year for switch gear, Clark’s subcontractors were able to find a solution, says Will Englehart, vice president at Clark Construction.

“Free State Electrical was able to find gear here in Maryland that could be manufactured 15 miles from the jobsite and delivered in seven months,” he says. “We went to the design team and said, ‘We have a solution. Can we design around this gear?’ It may not have been what they would have specified originally, but it worked.”

At that point, the electrical contractor wasn’t on board yet, so Clark agreed to purchase the equipment and transferred that purchase order to the subcontractor later, Englehart says.

When the 2022 CIAA tournament ended, Young says crews mobilized immediately. “The morning after the game, we had trucks there and crews started pulling out seats and started demo,” he says.

For Clark, construction start required adding the transfer girder so the proscenium stage could be removed, says Englehart. Up in the rafters, the new truss was built in and around existing components of the building. New columns were added to support the truss down to foundations, where additional micropiles were added to the existing system. Once in place, the team used truss-jacking to transfer the load gradually from the existing structure to the new truss. Once the load was transferred, the team was able to demo the stage and walls.

By removing the existing proscenium stage, the team created an open layout for touring acts to bring in their own staging.
Rendering by SCI Architects, courtesy Buro Happold

Full Stop

Demolition continued through the spring. By summer, interior fit-out work had begun, including mechanical and electrical rough-ins. The project was proceeding to plan, until demolition work revealed ceiling material that contained asbestos. Scaffolding had to be built from floor to ceiling in the five-level facility to create a platform for abatement work. “That really brought our seating bowl work on the north half of the job to a screeching halt,” Englehart says. “We couldn’t do any concrete work for several months as the material and the ceilings were being abated.”

With the schedule compressed, the final months of the project were fast-tracked to the finish. “In November, December and January, we were doing $1 million a day of work in place,” Englehart says. “We had over 300 electricians and nearly 150 mechanics and plumbers at one point.”

In filling the need for construction labor, the team had to meet city and county requirements regarding minority-owned and women-owned business participation. Targets were also set for hiring city and county residents. Englehart says the company met some of those requirements by splitting up larger contracts. For example, a portion of the demolition contract for removal of existing seating was carved out to open it up to disadvantaged businesses. Portions of the roofing and concrete work also were divided up to help meet its targets.

In the push to the finish, the team was able to expedite major components of the project. At the upper level, which previously housed only mechanical gear and other systems, new party suites were added. Behind the seating areas, concessions, restrooms and guest services areas were all reconfigured. At the north end of the building, an opening to the exterior was created to add a new bar enclosed in glass curtain wall.

Besides upgrading the concourses and concession areas, and changing the appearance and design of the building, the arena also includes locally sourced materials, LED lighting and low-flow water fixtures.

The team met its deadline, substantially completing the project in time for the 2023 CIAA basketball tournament. Once it ended, however, the team took the opportunity to take a second look at its work.

“The CIAA tournament was a bit of a dry run to kind of see what they liked and didn’t like about the building,” Englehart says. “So there have been a number of things over the last several weeks we’ve been doing to fine-tune what our client operators want.”

OVG’s decision to pursue a renovation rather than the traditional new construction for an arena was a first for the sports and live entertainment developer, which has delivered seven projects with a combined value of $5 billion over the past 16 months.

“The decision to go with a renovation is certainly appealing economically,” Leiweke says. “In some places, it’s the only way you can get to the finish line because for new construction, you’re going to spend at least a half billion dollars.”

The strategy also proved beneficial for the firm’s sustainability goals. OVG commissioned a study conducted by Buro Happold to calculate the environmental impact. The study showed that renovation resulted in a 95% reduction in embodied carbon compared with new construction, which would have resulted in more than 50,000 tons of structural waste from demolition.

“This really proves that you can make such a big impact, even with just one project, by really being creative and looking at how existing buildings can be reused,” says Patti Harburg-Petrich, principal at Buro Happold. “I really applaud the design team for their creativity and figuring out a really effective way to do that.”

Beyond the design and construction efforts made, Englehart, who grew up in Baltimore, says he is most proud of the impact the project will have on the city.

“I grew up going to this building,” he says. “I remember seeing the circus with my grandparents in this building when I was a kid. Baltimore has needed a new arena for a long time. I’m extremely proud to have been a part of it in my hometown.”