Project Overview
The BMO Stadium, formerly Banc of California Stadium, is Los Angeles' first outdoor arena built since 1962 and is home to Major League Soccer's Los Angeles FC and National Women's Soccer League's Angel City. The stadium's location was carefully chosen, focusing on the city's designated park area for museums, stadiums, and other similar-use venues and attractions. However, the park location became a primary focus since it provided the chance to demolish an outdated former sports arena that had been closed for many years. The new 22,000-seat stadium was strategically placed within the chosen site to provide excellent views of the city skyline.
The stadium includes several levels of sitting and standing space, as well as luxury boxes, hospitality amenities, and vendors. Precast concrete was chosen as the construction material of choice by the design team and general contractor due to its versatility, longevity, and schedule benefits, as well as the ability to minimize disruption to the area.
In the Design Assist role, Coreslab Structures LA, the precast producer, actively participated in developing the new stadium, working closely with the design, development, engineering, and ownership teams to provide the most cost-effective solutions in precast concrete.
Precast Solution
To realize the owner's vision, the Sports Division of an internationally acclaimed architect was enlisted to turn the design concepts into reality. The design team was primarily concerned with maximizing fan participation. They designed an open-air stadium that offers fans the ultimate game day experience.
The stadium has the steepest seating of any MLS Stadium at 34 degrees. In conjunction with the steep risers, the team achieved a maximum touchline distance of only 135 feet. To accomplish the 34-degree seating angle, the first conceptual design drawings included varying riser heights on practically every riser. Coreslab collaborated closely with the design team to achieve the intended result while reducing the number of riser designs and sizes. The solution was to nominally change the mounting height of the seats on the risers. This resulted in fewer forms and form revisions, streamlined precast manufacturing, and generated substantial cost savings,
Coreslab fabricated and installed over 950 precast concrete structural and architectural components for this LEED silver-certified project. The stadium features approximately 140,000 square feet of precast concrete and includes more than 780 distinct structural components. Structural precast elements included raker beams, stadia risers & tubs, walls, spandrels, and stair units. The precast producer designed, engineered, produced, delivered, and installed 150 architectural precast pieces totaling over 77,000 square feet. Additionally, architectural precast concrete was utilized for column covers and large wall panels for the Ancillary Building, which serves as the team store and Hall of Fame.
The design team requested a rough-sawn board finish for all architectural components which meant matching the Cast in Place (CIP) finishes with a rough-cut board finish for all the architectural precast components. The CIP finish was achieved using natural rough-saw timber. Initially, Coreslab attempted to mimic the finish using formliners, but there were noticeable differences between the formliner cast pieces and the real lumber CIP finishes. To obtain the required architectural look, Coreslab used rough-sawn lumber on the precast casting surfaces to create a perfect match in appearance.
In true California style, the stadium was built to emphasize sustainability and minimize environmental impact. Because the stadium is located within a block of major transit lines, many spectators use public transportation to access the venue. Additionally, 5% of the stadium's parking area had electric vehicle charging stations on opening day, with current infrastructure capacity including the opportunity to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations to 20%. The site also has bike paths and parking spaces for 440 bicycles. The project's commitment to sustainability has been recognized with Silver LEED Certification. |