Overall Winner: Under Armour Track and Field

From a vomitorium gate weighing 4.3 tons to a concrete feature wall meticulously crafted from self-consolidating mix to a field and track infused with technology that can measure athletes’ performance in real time, the Under Armour Track and Field complex was an extraordinary construction project.

The world-class facility at Under Armour’s headquarters on Baltimore Peninsula was designed to both test Under Armour products and host sports competitions. The complex includes an eight-lane, 400-meter track, seating for 1,400 fans and a multi-dimensional field for NCAA matches and high school football, soccer and lacrosse. The project also included unique design features and exceptionally high quality standards.

Excell Concrete Construction was tasked with creating a 300-foot long, 16-foot wide, 25-foot tall cast-in-place, board-formed wall that would be the feature wall for the entire grandstand. Orlando Ruiz and his team soon realized that the specified concrete mix would not create the desired appearance nor meet the exacting specifications for the wall. By completing a series of five mockups, Excell identified a self-consolidating mix as the preferred product for the wall and crafted a meticulous construction process.

Excell, the concrete supplier and a third-party inspector followed an exhaustive quality management protocol that measured the concrete slump, temperature and air content at both the concrete plant and once shipments arrived onsite to avoid any deviations in the mix. Vibrations introduced into pours were strategically planned to prevent over exercising the mix and to limit bug holes. Crews systemically stripped all pours after the same amount of curing time in the formwork to avoid color changes between the 10 pours for the feature wall.

Excell which also constructed architecturally smooth walls in the vomitorium and facing the field, adopted additional processes to ensure a high-quality product. The team preplanned specific locations and finishing processes for tie-holes. To achieve the smooth, 90-degree corners specified in the design, crews also sealed each corner to prevent concrete slurry from leaking through and creating weak points in a pour that could result in chipping or spalling.

Meanwhile, Baltimore Fabrication was tackling the daunting ornamental/miscellaneous metals package for the Under Armour facilty. The project’s complex railing system included mesh between each metal post, multiple plates on each side of the panels and lights running through the entire railing.

The most ambitious metal feature, however, was the rolling, barn door gates, measuring 18 feet high and 31.5 feet wide, that would serve as the entrance to the grandstand seating area. The design called for a seamless butt where the two gates came together and joined two aluminum panels to display the Under Armour logo. The gate would also have to withstand intense winds and seismic loads on the building’s exterior.

The initial design which called for all steel framing and panel members, presented constructability and operational challenges due to the sheer weight of the structure. Scott Foreman and his team at Baltimore Fabrication proposed a value engineering option to use aluminum panels to reduce the weight and allow the manual gate to operate more easily. Even with those changes, the completed gate weighed 4.3 tons. It rides on a 62-foot-long track bolted into concrete and is carried by four, two-ton trolleys.

The project team, led by The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, successfully navigated numerous other challenges.

Supply chain issues created very long lead times for electrical gear procurement and postponed the estimated delivery date for the main distribution panel until after the project’s completion. DEL Electric flagged the problem during the buyout process and arranged to rent temporary gear from Mississippi to support timely installation and operation of all equipment, commissioning activities, building inspections, and on-schedule turnover to Under Armour.

Dust created from site work and construction threatened to compromise the track installation which involves multiple days of layered pours and tacking-up overnight. Whiting-Turner and Gray & Son worked together to provide five water trucks to spray the site continuously during track surfacing and assigned additional laborers to use hoses to dampen areas that the trucks could not reach.

Throughout the project, an aggressive schedule and tight logistical work areas required intense planning and collaboration. Whiting-Turner held daily huddles with onsite foremen and weekly project manager meetings to ensure that trades were aware of each other’s activities and could coordinate efficiently. That heightened communication also enabled project partners to respond to challenges as they surfaced. For example, designation of the concrete walls as critical path items for the project convinced Excell Concrete that they would need substantially more manpower than was available inhouse. Excell collaborated with Whiting-Turner to secure additional labor.