Resch Center, Green Bay, Wis.

The $45 million Resch Center is a facility in the Brown County Veterans Memorial Complex. The 285,000-sq.-ft., multipurpose arena is used for concerts (seating for 11,000 people) and sports (8,000 to 9,000).

The facility has a cable-suspended, steel-frame roof. The structure reportedly requires fewer pounds per square foot of steel. In addition, the shallow slope is said to create smaller building volume that reduces heating and cooling costs and improves acoustics yet does not create snow problems.

The roof trusses are composed of 560 tons of steel. At the roof dome is a flat center hub that is 29 ft. wide, 144 ft. long, and a network of cables and trusses connect to four hub connections to support the roof.

A three-dimensional model of the steel structure was developed and studied to address site constraints and study the erection sequence.

The team developed a plan to erect the structure from within the building. Eight 10-ft.-sq., 60-ft.-tall false work towers provided temporary support for the center hub and trusses until the cable connections could be completed.

Each cable was tuned one at a time. The difficult part was once the tension on a cable was adjusted, the tension of the other cables changed and had to be readjusted. Once the cables were appropriately tensioned, the work towers were removed.

Has Serpentine Curtain Wall

Four different trades came together to build the serpentine curtain wall.

The curtain wall is supported by tube steel because it is so large. The foundations needed to be directly coordinated with the steel fabricator who relied on the steel erector. Once the structural steel was detailed, the curtain wall supplier relied on the steel drawings to detail the system.

Another twist is the curtain wall rotated around four different radius points, three inside.

The steel portion was the most demanding. The curtain wall and glazing required an almost truly plumb surface for proper attachment.

Monolithic Slab Poured

A large monolithic concrete slab pour was required for the 86-ft-wide, 200-ft.-long, 8-in.-thick ice hockey floor that required 450 cu. yds. of concrete.

The focus was to pour the floor flat with minimal floor joints to provide a quality surface for ice making.

The floor was poured in one continuous slab without expansion or control joints.
Beginning at 6 a.m., a crew of 21 workers completed the task by 5 p.m. using a wide-span screed-leveling machine, concrete pumper truck with radio-controlled operator, four floor trowels and two walk-behind trowels.

Communication was an issue. As the contract documents were developed, more than 750 requests for information and 400 requested enhancements were addressed in the originally scheduled time frame.

To manage this information, the team had access to a central project management system, and progress was monitored using Internet cameras. Regular coordination meetings and a tracking system were used to manage information and communicate with the team.

The jury said, "The cable system used for the roof is fascinating. The curtain wall is simple and clean and nice solution. This was very well done."

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