$800,000 to demolish Memorial Stadium

[UCONNJACK]

UConn Capital Project Department is budgeting $800K to demolish Memorial Stadium this summer. I believe it cost only $50k to construct it in the early 50's. The practice facility is still slated to be completed in 2014 per the February 2012 Capital Project construction update.

 

[GavinEdreamy]

$800K to blow something up / rip it down?! Not that I know anything much about demolition and construction, but really, it is that expensive? Why not just blow those big old concrete blocks to pieces then offer every student a free t-shirt to come haul away a block? That's gotta be cheaper, right? Let's see...roughly 16,000 students and $10 a t-shirt...correct me if I'm wrong, but that's only $160K. Plus lets say oh I dunno...maybe $200-300K for the machine rental costs to tear the bleachers down in the first place? This can be done for half the price!

 

[huskyblooz]

the new Giant Stadium cost $1.4B to build. If it were built in Tennessee, it wouldve cost $550M. There's nothing special about it.
Unions in the northeast have alot of power.

 

[dsturdy5]

I say let the fans come with their tools and such and take the darn thing down. Anyone who helps gets a free beer at the Rent next year.


Then again, given the price of beer at the rent UConn may lose money on that proposition...

 

[Fishy]

$800K to blow something up / rip it down?! Not that I know anything much about demolition and construction, but really, it is that expensive? Why not just blow those big old concrete blocks to pieces then offer every student a free t-shirt to come haul away a block? That's gotta be cheaper, right? Let's see...roughly 16,000 students and $10 a t-shirt...correct me if I'm wrong, but that's only $160K. Plus lets say oh I dunno...maybe $200-300K for the machine rental costs to tear the bleachers down in the first place? This can be done for half the price!

Are you suggesting that the University of Connecticut turn the demolition of a football stadium into a DIY project?

We'll just rent some machines from the Home Depot, buy some dynamite from the Acme Dynamite Company, blow up the stadium and then expect 16,000 people to cart away 16,000 blocks in exchange for a tee shirt.

What if we blow the place up and end up with 32,000 blocks? Or 64,000 blocks? Or what if we end up with exactly 16,000 blocks but they weigh 200 pounds a piece? Or what if people decide, hey, I have enough tee shirts and I don't like carrying concrete blocks?

I have an idea. Let's just pay the $800,000 and make the stadium go away. My hunch is that they probably put more thought into it than we did.

 

[GavinEdreamy]

Are you suggesting that the University of Connecticut turn the demolition of a football stadium into a DIY project?

We'll just rent some machines from the Home Depot, buy some dynamite from the Acme Dynamite Company, blow up the stadium and then expect 16,000 people to cart away 16,000 blocks in exchange for a tee shirt.

What if we blow the place up and end up with 32,000 blocks? Or 64,000 blocks? Or what if we end up with exactly 16,000 blocks but they weigh 200 pounds a piece? Or what if people decide, hey, I have enough tee shirts and I don't like carrying concrete blocks?

I have an idea. Let's just pay the $800,000 and make the stadium go away. My hunch is that they probably put more thought into it than we did.

My way is still more fun. And there is no such thing as too many tee shirts. It is un-American to suggest it.

 

[Fishy]

I'm not committing to anything until I see the dynamite.

If you get that far, I'm in....from a safe distance.

 

[AJC88]

I signed up for like 5 credit cards for a free slice of pizza in my undergrad years, people would definitely go for the t-shirts

 

[CL82]

Just hold Spring Weekend in Memorial Stadium and send in the bulldozers and pick up trucks in on Monday to clean up the rubble.

 

[uc1974]

They'll have to hire union employees and are required to pay "prevailing wage." This means that a union employee who might receive $28.00 per hour would get about $42.00 per hour for the same work, BUT on a government job, not a private one. The job could be done competently and safely with union employees for probably $600,000 without prevailing wage and probably for $400,000 without union labor. Pick which number you want, as a taxpayer.

 

[pick6s]

Just hold Spring Weekend in Memorial Stadium and send in the bulldozers and pick up trucks in on Monday to clean up the rubble.

nice one!!!

 

[UCDaveD]

True story:

One time when I was visiting Seattle, I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when some Rocky Dennis looking schmuck decided to yell at me from his car, 'Hey...UConn sucks!' and flip me off. I got so pissed that I punched the wall of the nearest building I could find. Apparently there were a lot of cameras rolling that day and they just so happened to catch the results of what happened next.



I haven't been allowed back in Seattle since.

 

[GavinEdreamy]

True story:

One time when I was visiting Seattle, I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when some Rocky Dennis looking schmuck decided to yell at me from his car, 'Hey...UConn sucks!' and flip me off. I got so pissed that I punched the wall of the nearest building I could find. Apparently there were a lot of cameras rolling that day and they just so happened to catch the results of what happened next.



I haven't been allowed back in Seattle since.

Haha, well done. You need to do that to Carrier Dome next - try to make sure no one is in the building though.

 

[Waquoit]

I signed up for like 5 credit cards for a free slice of pizza in my undergrad years, people would definitely go for the t-shirts

This guy I know asked me what I thought of his new Rock Cats T-shirt. I said I guess it looked OK. He said it should, it cost him $2500 bucks. Seems he got it free for signing up for a credit card at the game. Next day he's drinking at the Elks (never a good thing), and the boys decide to hit Mohegan. "I guess I cash adavnced the whole thing to play roulette."

 

[SubbaBub]

They'll have to hire union employees and are required to pay "prevailing wage." This means that a union employee who might receive $28.00 per hour would get about $42.00 per hour for the same work, BUT on a government job, not a private one. The job could be done competently and safely with union employees for probably $600,000 without prevailing wage and probably for $400,000 without union labor. Pick which number you want, as a taxpayer.

Union laborers make about $25 an hour and its not steady work. You are welcome to try. I doubt you'd last a day.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

 

[zls44]

True story:

One time when I was visiting Seattle, I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when some Rocky Dennis looking schmuck decided to yell at me from his car, 'Hey...UConn sucks!' and flip me off. I got so pissed that I punched the wall of the nearest building I could find. Apparently there were a lot of cameras rolling that day and they just so happened to catch the results of what happened next.



I haven't been allowed back in Seattle since.

True story: the residents of King County, Washington are still paying millions in debt service on the King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium which no longer exists.

 

[uc1974]

The figure I used for hourly wage was to show the difference between prevailing wage and regular union wage, not to delineate a specific wage for a particular union job. Having decided many prevailing wage cases in my career I can state to a certainty that $42.00 per hour is not out of line for many union jobs on prevailing wage work. You're right, I wouldn't last a day. I'm well over 60 and have a bad back. I was a member of two unions before I went to college and law school, Teamsters and AFL-CIO. Neither were run honestly and simply took advantage of the poor saps who had to join to make a living. I'm sorry there isn't regular work for laborers but I'm not certain that overpaying when one does work is the solution.

 

[SubbaBub]

Then you should know the prevailing rates are available on the CT DOL website and in place to promote properly trained workers that aren't exploited by contractors. I don't belong to a union but do employ them.

I.wouldn't want my tax dollars spent to build a substandard facility by a fly by night contractor. There are plenty of overpaid people in this world, these guys are not among them.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

 

[ArizonaHusky]

Union laborers make about $25 an hour and its not steady work. You are welcome to try. I doubt you'd last a day.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

Yeah those 3 hour lunch breaks must be terrible.

 

[yankeewc]

the new Giant Stadium cost $1.4B to build. If it were built in Tennessee, it wouldve cost $550M. There's nothing special about it.
Unions in the northeast have alot of power.

Why are we bashing unions? Perhaps, we should take Newt's advice and have the elementary school students build this facility.

 

[Pudge]

True story:



I haven't been allowed back in Seattle since.

hmmm ... could be the Carrier Dome.

At some point, the Syracuse building will be the ONLY Dome left from pre-1980. New York State won't help finance another one. Go join the freaking aCC & play in your Mausoleum. There is a reason why many others were blown up.

Dynomite? I happen to know a Boneyard poster from Danbury works for one of the premier Dynomite (way beyond that in technology today) companies in the world. We can get the blow-up stuff cheap.

 

[uc1974]

Subba-

I don't want to beat this to death so I'll stop after this post. My point is not to denigrate union labor. Unions, maybe. My point was that prevailing wage is ridiculous and simply another of many unnecessary burdens that government places on its taxpayers. If its OK with you as a businessman that's fine with me. Your P&L is your concern, not mine. I try to stay away from the DOL website--I'm retired and thankfully have no need to go there. Although the department has many fine individual employees, it's annoyingly political and goes where the prevailing winds take it. Anyway, it'll be good to get a BB practice facility and to have Memorial consigned to the dustbin of history. That's the important thing for us fans of the programs.

 

[cordeodato]

If we could round up some Ents, they would take that place down
in under 30 minutes

 

[freescooter]

We do a fair amount of work with both union and non-union shops in Connecticut. I have to agree with bob on this. But I'd go even further and say that at least at the moment, the difference between pre-vailing wages and not prevailing wage jobs is negligible. It sure ins't 40%. Beyond that, this is a demo job. and wihtout knowing lots of information its hard to tell what is a fair price. One big factor in demo work is the material...and any hazardous materials greatly increases the costs. the other is disposal. In a small densely populated state like connecticut disposal sites are at a premium and so are costs. That is strictly a market phenomonon but it can add significanlty to the costs of disposal. Contractors have told us that it is sometimes cheaper to dispose of building materials in Pennsylvania, depite the transportaiton costs, than to "buy" space in Connecticut. Just to give it some perspective, CT is 4th most densly populated State in the US at about 740/square mile. North carolina, for instance is 198/sq mi. Lots more open spaces to dump stuff, and hence lower costs.

 

[Palatine]

Just put the stadium wreckage at the top of Husky Hill, cover it with dirt and add a little vertical drop to the ski slope. Win./Win.