Milwaukee Bucks mark halfway point in new arena construction

The topping off of the new Milwaukee Bucks arena project means far more than the symbolic placing of structural steel high above the seating bowl.

In a little more than a year, the Bucks have created a new gateway into downtown, especially for motorists exiting I-43 onto McKinley Blvd.

Drivers see the recently opened Bucks $31 million practice facility and a new parking ramp, with the swooping north side of the $524 million arena providing a dramatic backdrop. It's been months of "oh, wow" moments as the arena walls, windows and roof are installed by an army of cranes and fearless workers inching along beams and swarming the roof.

Those highlights and the overall progress on the arena will be celebrated by a crowd of about 1,000 Thursday at an invitation-only event and lunch. The gathering will include Bucks owners and employees, construction workers, subcontractors and suppliers, and, of course, public officials who helped secure $250 million in taxpayer money for the arena.

During the event, a beam will be lifted and bolted into place high above the seating bowl. An American flag and a small evergreen will be placed on each end of the beam, the latter an iron worker tradition meant to symbolize prosperity and good luck.

"It's a celebratory milestone. We're only 14 months away from breaking ground," Bucks President Peter Feigin said. 

"This is a real progress report," he said, adding that the Bucks were especially pleased that the project is on track, on budget, and with no serious worker injuries.

The topping off is a "super important moment" for all involved, especially the iron workers, said Angie Helfert, a Mortenson project manager for the Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center project, the formal name for the Bucks arena and associated development. Mortenson is the construction manager for the arena project.

Workers from companies such as Merrill Iron & Steel of Schofield in north central Wisconsin, which fabricated the structural steel, will have a chance to see their contributions.

"They aren't on site, so they generally don't get to see what they've been working on," Helfert said,

On Thursday, the beam will be positioned not in the highest spot of the arena, but at the catwalk level on either side of where the scoreboard will eventually be stationed. 

The Bucks' topping off differs in several ways from the similar stage in the construction of the area's most recently completed publicly financed arena, the Milwaukee Brewers' Miller Park in the fall of 2000.

The Brewers invited the community for a daylong celebration that drew thousands of people who signed an iron "box chord" beam for the stadium's retractable roof and made a contribution to America's Second Harvest of Wisconsin.

On Wednesday, Bucks season ticket holders were invited to sign one of two beams. The beam lifted Thursday will be signed by Bucks staff, dignitaries, iron workers and season ticket holders. A second beam signed by other workers will be lifted Friday.

The differences between the Bucks' and Brewers' events in part reflects the acrimonious debate and size of the public financing for Miller Park. The $400 million baseball stadium was created with a five-county 0.1% sales tax approved in a dramatic late night vote that ultimately cost a state senator his job. Public support of the Bucks arena is a $250 million package from the city, county and convention center that was approved with far less controversy.

Also, the Brewers didn't hold a formal topping off ceremony, in deference to the three iron workers who died in the Big Blue crane collapse in July 1999. That tragedy added a year to the Miller Park construction schedule and opened in the spring of 2001.

The Bucks' topping off also provides a moment to consider what's next.

For some people, their work is winding down, and it's off to the next building. Young Mortenson engineer Ellen Becker, for instance, landed a promotion and is heading to Las Vegas soon to work on the new football stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders.

For others, it's a start — employment on the site will grow from about 700 now to 800 as the work moves to finishing the interior. There will be more dry wall finishers and painters and fewer steel workers and roofers.

In addition to the arena itself, it's increasingly apparent how the Bucks projects will bridge the redeveloped Pabst complex at the west end of downtown with the bars and restaurants along Old World Third St. and Water St. That broader impact was a key argument in efforts to secure the public financing for the arena.

Later this year, an ancillary project, a Froedtert medical clinic, will open next to the practice facility.

Beyond the continuing construction, the Bucks have plenty on their plate in the months ahead. Soon, the team will announce the naming rights package, a deal that Feigin says could be worth up to $100 million. 

For the hundreds of construction workers on the site, Thursday's event is a time to pause and reflect and then get back on schedule once the hundreds of guests clear out. As of now, that shouldn't been too much of a problem.

"What's cool is that we're right on track," Helfert said.

Before work began, Mortenson set a detailed schedule with dates for moments such as each roof truss lift.

"We've hit all of those dates and that schedule was set more than a year ago," Helfert said. "That's what we expect."

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