This February, the Super Bowl will be held at State Farm Stadium in beautiful Glendale, Arizona. The lucky fans in attendance will undoubtedly be enjoying the spectacle in comfort and style – with help from premier mechanical construction and facilities management firm TDIndustries.
Spectators rarely consider what a monumental undertaking it is to build and install the systems that keep over 70,000 fans, team members and press in climate-controlled comfort in the dead of winter.
Fortunately, TD knows comfort. Having designed and installed mechanical systems in some of the nation’s most iconic sporting arenas, TD can attest to what it takes to make an event like the Super Bowl (and countless other events, from concerts to conventions) effortlessly enjoyable. As the mechanical subcontractor, TD provided design-build, HVAC and plumbing services for State Farm Stadium, ultimately winning a national award from Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) for its contribution to the project. The original plan included 73,000 seating capacity, 88 luxury lofts, 22 cooking concession areas, 8,000 tons of air conditioning and 2.5 million pounds of sheet metal. The preconstruction phase for this project was only four months long, but in that time, TD was able to create a sound mechanical design according to the design-build scope for the 1.7 million square-foot sports facility.
According to JimBo Bunnell, the vice president of construction who guided the project for TDIndustries, “The architect, the general contractor and TD came to the table every week to go through the plans to ensure that we built the stadium on time and within budget. Hunt Construction was the general contractor, and they provided exceptional leadership.” When construction was complete in 2006, State Farm Stadium (formerly University of Phoenix Stadium) was the first stadium in North America to have a retractable natural grass playing surface and the first completely retractable roof operating at an incline. With its stunning desert views, State Farm Stadium was named Event Site of the Year by Event Solutions Magazine in 2007, Best NFL Facility by Sports Business Journal and Sports Business Daily in 2006 and 2007 and Best New Venue of the 2000s by SportsIllustrated.com.
Home to the Arizona Cardinals, the annual Fiesta Bowl, and a variety of other events, it was important to TDIndustries to also serve the community around State Farm Stadium. “TD built-up and scaled our workforce in Arizona. Our mission was to keep the positive economic benefits of building the stadium within the local community,” shared Bunnell. TD’s corporate value of servant leadership guides every project that it undertakes.
State Farm Stadium is undoubtedly a world-class sporting facility. “It obviously gives you a great sense of pride,” says Bunnell. “It is pretty cool when you’re watching the big game, and someone reaches out to you to confirm that’s a stadium you built.” According to Bunnell, “Thanks to TD’s heating, air conditioning and plumbing installation, fans can enjoy all the comforts of home. You can play a game in the middle of February and not have to worry about the weather impacting you, because you get inside that stadium and the temperature is perfect.”