For our first full day in Austin we were all excited to go to our first site visit of the trip! We all made our way to the University of Texas in Austin to go visit the on-going construction of their new American football complex. The general contractor on the project is Mortenson and they started the project in September 2024 with an estimated completion date of May 2026.The project features a 2 story 70,000 square foot indoor practice place, a 79,000 square foot outdoor practice field, all which is on top of a parking garage with some amenities for their elite.

We were all greeted by Braden Johnson, project manager on the project, and Jack Chappell, a newly graduated project engineer, who gave us the tour of the site. They explained how the old building on the plot that was demolished previously housed the school of social work. They ran into some issues when preparing for demolition since the building had been newly assigned historical protection due to it being the first public middle school that was de-segregated in Texas. The University worked an arrangement since the building was surrounded by other sporting facilities and the current building no longer fit in the region that it was in.

Once we entered the work site, we went into more details about the work itself. Specifically, they talked a lot about the speed at which the construction was progressing due to Texas having less construction regulations compared to a state like Illinois. We took a look as they were still finishing up the exterior metal paneling. working towards their deadline of May 17th for full enclosure and a dust free interior. There was also some insulation work in the interior to wrap up the full enclosure along with the application of a modified bitumen layer in the area of the outdoor field for waterproofing.
That being said, the biggest concern of the project was not having the parking garage fully operational before the start of the football season. The University had sold the spots in the parking garage in advance worth $100,000 for the next 5 seasons. This meant that the vast majority of the liquidated damages on the project were tied directly to the construction not obstructing the access to that garage. With that pressure in mind, the team is currently progressing on schedule and fully expecting to meet their deadline.

That doesn’t mean that the project wasn’t without its complications though. Large and mature trees are an important symbol for Austin and there were about 35 trees in the demolition area. Two of these trees were transplanted which cost over $100,000 per tree alone and have yet to finish their relocation. Another complication that the team dealt with were delays in shipment of structural steel. The steel was being sourced from Tijuana Mexico and due to geopolitical issues they halted steel erection for nearly a month. This all goes to show that no matter how prepared you may be you still have to adapt to local regulations and problems out of your control.

All in all, it was a great tour jam-packed with a lot of good information. There are not many sports and entertainment projects at a time so having the opportunity to visit one of these sites was a great opportunity that we aren’t likely to forget soon!

Blog by Luis Castro