• 8 months ago
Rob Matwick, Rangers Executive Vice President of Business Operations, provides a construction update on Globe Life Field.
Transcript
00:00I'll just give you a quick overview, and then obviously I know you guys may want to continue shooting the activity on the field, so we'll go ahead and do that.
00:07My partner Jack Hill reminded me that we will have heat in the building when it opens, so I know we've got a little bit of north wind coming in at the moment, but we'll mitigate that when we're ready to go.
00:18So, as you look behind me now, really top to bottom, as you can see up in the center section of the building and the roof,
00:26we're putting in the EGFE panels, which we've talked about quite a bit, so we'll provide the indirect light into the building.
00:33Right now, we've got about 14 of the panels in place. We have about 20 more to go to get those completed.
00:39Up on the roof itself, you're finishing the decking on the north and south, and now working on the edges and the seals that will keep wind and rain out once the roof is completed.
00:50So, that's everything that's going on up on the top, if you will.
00:53Over my left shoulder, as you can see, we have sports lights that are actually on now, and if you look around the building, you'll see that we have lighting in place, sports lighting in place throughout.
01:02Not all of it is on or tested yet, but it is all there.
01:06And then, going down to the field level, you can now see the shape of the infield and actually the concrete boards that are taking place to form the field.
01:16So, on the actual infield, we will have a clay surface, as we do at Globe Lake Park.
01:21We're not going to put a subsurface below that. What's under it is exactly the same subsurface material that our players have played on all the way back to Arlington Stadium days.
01:32Next week, we'll actually start to get some of the select fill and clay.
01:36So, if we were to come back here a week, two weeks from now, you would actually see the infield clay that you're used to seeing.
01:44I expect that we'll have the complete turf system into the field by the end of February.
01:49The target date right now is about February 24th. It can always move a little bit.
01:53By the end of next month, we'll have the field completely in place, so we're excited about that.
01:57When you look up on the levels, you can see the suites that are lit behind me.
02:02Now that we have walls and floors and ceilings in place, we have TVs in, millwork is in place,
02:09in February, we'll start to take delivery of a really significant amount of furniture that has to go into all of these spaces to finish them out.
02:16About 7,500 pieces will be delivered here beginning February 1. It will continue about the middle of March.
02:22And then you can look out and see the seat installation taking place.
02:26That will be ongoing here, obviously, for another month or so, until we get all 40,000 seats in the building.
02:31So, that's sort of a nutshell of everything that we have going on.
02:36I'm glad to answer any questions you might have.
02:38Obviously, we've got Jim Cudahy, Jack Hill from Manhattan and Rangers here.
02:43If you have any specific questions that I can't answer, they typically can.
02:47But if you have anything, please feel free to go ahead.
02:50Just between us, are you really going to get it done on time?
02:53Yes. We don't have a choice.
02:55As we know, when we walk next door today, we have a soccer clinic going on.
02:59We have a Renegades football game on February night.
03:03So, there's not a fallback position.
03:05But if you're talking to the guys from Manhattan who are in charge of building this,
03:09they haven't missed the deadline yet and we don't intend to now.
03:11As confident as you sound, and I know that you mean it,
03:14do you need to be reminded of that at times when you take a look at what we're seeing?
03:19Yes.
03:22I've done this before.
03:23I've had the opportunity to go through it in Houston when we built Minimink Park.
03:27I was with the Astros.
03:28Jack Hill, who has done multiple of these projects, has reminded me,
03:32until you walk through the front door on the first day, you always are concerned.
03:37But, we've got a great team behind it.
03:40We're working at least, in some cases, we're working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.
03:45If we have to shift it to 24 hours a day, I know Manhattan is prepared to do that.
03:49So, I'm relying on the construction experts, but we'll get it done.

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