The construction site for the Houston Dynamo’s new downtown stadium has been consistently busy over the last three months, but fans can now expect to see a new dimension of the project: vertical.
On Friday, crews raised the first of five cranes that will be employed to place the heavy steel tresses that provide the structural support for the stadium. Towering above the site, the cranes will help build the the stadium’s framework.
“Within a couple of months, you’re going to see the skeleton of this building take shape, and it’s going to take off from there,” Manhattan Construction Company project manager Matt Doffing told media on Wednesday. “This is just the start of what you’re going to see take shape in the next few months.”
MORE: Photos from the stadium site on Wednesday
Four more cranes are scheduled to be added soon, as Manhattan’s crews prepare to build on the concrete foundations already established.
“We’ve poured about 80 percent of the concrete for the stadium,” Doffing said. “We still have to come back at the end of the year and finish out the lower part of the seating bowl.”
MORE: Get a live view of the stadium site
With less than 300 days remaining until the project is scheduled to be completed in time for a May 2012 opening, Manhattan will employ separate work flows. Starting in the southwest and northeast corners, crews will build out those respective corners before proceeding down the sidelines to the opposite corner.
Steel trusses, set to be fabricated in nearby Livingston, will begin to arrive in downtown Houston and be placed next week, beginning the next phase of the project.
