Pride and the Pit

UNM Renovates Legendary Arena, CNM Bolsters Student Services

Additions at two college campuses seek to redefine student life. UNM expands its revered stadium The Pit while CNM adds a flagship student resource center.

By Neal Singer

A $40-million, 71,000-sq-ft addition is under way at the University of New Mexico’s 43-year-old basketball arena, known nationally as “The Pit.”

Since the very first game was played at the Pit on Dec. 1, 1966, the decibel level of screaming fans has reached ear-splitting proportions. The arena was ranked 13th worldwide on Sports Illustrated’s Top 20 Venues of the 20th Century in 1999. (Photo Courtesy Marble Street Studio)

And, on the main campus of Albuquerque-based Central New Mexico Community College, the largest community college in the state, a $24.8-million Student Resource Center is being built.

The two projects require different approaches.

Because the Pit is an icon in the community and even nationwide, architect John Pate of Albuquerque-based Molzen-Corbin and Associates had to tread gently when designing changes. “There are historic things that people wanted preserved,” he says. “Players like the noise. They want to keep it loud in there.”

Construction on the Pit started in January and is slated to continue through the upcoming basketball season and conclude in December 2010.

Construction on the $40-million, 71,000-sq-ft addition to the Pit will continue through December 2010. (Photo Courtesy Marble Street Studio)

Unchanged are the seating rows’ steep slope, which brings fans closer to the action and acts to magnify the decibels of cheers or jeers. Also unchanged are aspects of the overhead lighting, which remains focused on the court rather than the stands.

To fulfill the university’s prime directive to make the Pit a better basketball arena, Pate’s team put in new chair backs, designed new scoreboards, doubled the number of restrooms, added state-of-the-art locker-room facilities and expanded concessions space and the concourse.

“Concession lines used to cross the traffic,” Pate says. “Now lines for hot dogs and the like are parallel to direction of the concourse.”

The architect created a high-rise look in front of the building with a 56-ft-tall glass tower, lit from within and supported by a steel superstructure. The shape of the roof was changed to resemble half a figure-8, making the building more visually interesting than its former box-like external appearance.

Plans also call for encasing the building’s street floor with glass so that people can see into the Pit from outside the building.

“We’re building a little jewel box around the building,” Pate says. “We want the Pit to be seen as an urban destination instead of a warehouse – an attractive, up-to-date building with better access for everyone.”

Flintco jobsite safety officer Brian Costanzo shows off the demolition work taking place at the Pit. Safety will be a major factor on the arena project since fans will be allowed into the building for games during construction. (Photo Courtesy Marble Street Studio)

The project is aiming for LEED gold certification. The number of seats were reduced to create code-compliant accessible seating. The university also dedicated permanent open space to the community in the form of ball fields south of the Pit.

Heating and cooling standards were heightened. Michael Grant, president of Albuquerque-based Grant & Associates Mechanical, says his company will minimize energy lost to repeated opening and closing of Pit external doors by providing hydronic in-floor radiant heating, created by boiler-driven hot water.

Meanwhile, the biggest immediate problem to project manager Jim Lloyd of Flintco West, the Albuquerque-based general contractor on the project, is having the arena ready to play basketball and safely support an influx of thousands of fans while construction is ongoing.

“We’re working closely with design teams at UNM to provide safe entry and egress, sprinklers and fire alarms that meet with the approval of the fire marshal,” he says. “It takes a lot of planning and coordination.”

The 120,000-sq-ft CNM Student Resource Center houses a library, computer labs, classrooms and a cafe for students to socialize. (Image courtesy AECOM Design)

The mezzanine, to be renovated with suites and a club area, won’t be open. Instead, there will be tents on the east and west side of the building with concessions and restrooms, Lloyd says. Fences around the area will limit access. A protected walkway will take patrons through the construction and into the arena.

At Central New Mexico Community College, the new building is less meant to stoke excitement than to directly graduate students into jobs in technology, nursing, food preparation and the commercial arts. The school also provides an inexpensive way for students interested in a four-year college to complete their general studies classes.

The 120,000-sq-ft addition – two buildings and a covered breezeway in the heart of the 60-acre downtown central campus – will house a library, computer labs, classrooms, the school’s information technology department and a café.

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The flagship buildings, to be completed in August 2010, will attempt a LEED silver rating by optimizing solar gain, collecting rainfall to supplement landscape water needs and installing highly efficient mechanical systems.

“One of the most interesting things about the project is the mix of uses,” says architect Brett Oaks, design principle for the Phoenix office of AECOM Design. “Here we have four different functions tightly packed: a library, classroom space, tutoring and a main data center that operates the building.”

AECOM project architect Sandra Giblin adds, “The question was how to make these diverse spaces have unique functions and styles while being part of an overall building.”

Jim Karnes, project manager on the job for Albuquerque-based Gerald Martin General Contractor and also a CNM graduate, says “It could look like a typically constructed steel building, but its integrally designed with masonry walls and beams that challenge mason and steel erectors to work closely together. We erect columns and then build masonry around them.”

After demolition, crews separated concrete and other construction waste to be later recycled as part of the project’s LEED gold certification goal. (Photo Courtesy Marble Street Studio)

Paul DeMaggio, senior marketing vice president of W&W Steel LLC of Oklahoma City, says “If structural steel is not detailed and coordinated correctly with other trades like concrete and masonry, the opportunity for success doesn’t exist. Here, the coordination of our team with others was well orchestrated.”

The foundation of the buildings was another challenge, Karnes says. He oversaw placement of 192 piers that averaged 25 ft deep.

“It’s quite an interesting structural design,” he says. “It’s atypical. I’ve never seen so many piers.”

The multiple piers were designed by PK Associates of Scottsdale from technical reports on the nature of the soil, the multiple piers proved useful when earth collapsed at the bottom of several, leaving voids into which concrete was pumped to refill.

Key Players

UNM Arena (The Pit)
Owner: University of New Mexico
General Contractor: Flintco West
Architect: Molzen-Corbin & Associates
Sports Consultant: Sink-Combs Dethlefs
Engineers: Chavez- Grieves Consulting Engineers; Bridgers and Paxton Consulting Engineers

CNM Student Resources Center
Owner: Central N.M. Community College
General Contractor: Gerald Martin G.C.
Architect: AECOM Design
Engineer: PK Associates
Subcontractors: W&W Steel; Beaty Construction; Southwest Glass & Glazing; National HVAC; Hanna Plumbing; Theco; Hark Drilling

Useful Sources

For more information on The Pit, rated one of the 20th century’s top 20 sporting venues, visit www.golobos.com/facilities/nm-the-pit.html

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