Amusement/Stadiums

PNC Park - Pittsburgh Pirates Stadium

Pittsburgh, PA

Design Architect: HOK Sports, St. Louis

Architect of record: L.D. Astorino & Associates, Ltd., Pittsburgh

Engineer: The Thornton-Tomasetti Group Inc., New York

Contractor: Dick Corp./Barton Malow, joint venture, Pittsburgh

Owner: Public Auditorium Authority of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh

Precaster: Joint venture of the Shockey Precast Group and the Newcrete Products Division of New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co.

PNC’s Two-Deck Seating
At Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, the lowest12 rows at “field level” contain about3,000 seats and are made of cast-in-place concrete, says Jeff Slusarick, vicepresident of sports for PNC’s architect of record, L.D. Astorino Cos. in Pittsburgh. The next 31 rows higher,which extend contiguously up to themain concourse, were made with precastrisers and raker beams. At the lowerlevel, the precast rakers rest on cast-in-place foundations.

PNC’s upper tier contains the luxurysuite level, club level seats and upper-level seating. The 69 luxury boxes aretucked under the club level but arecontiguous with it in the upper tier. All the upper-level precast components reston steel frames. These feature a two-deck design in which Newcrete fabricated the precast components for the lower level and Shockey manufac-tured the second level with the suiteseating, club level and upper levelseating.

“By nature of the two-deck design, the closeness of the seating to the fieldcreates a very intimate ballpark,” says Slusarick. “Only Fenway Park [inBoston] has fewer seats.” The ballpark was built for the market size for baseball in Pittsburgh, he explains, where average attendance this past year was 30,839 people. The stadium holds 38,127 people.

The upper tier contains 69 luxury suites, says Nick Kolar, project manager for The Shockey Precast Group. This seating was made of precast front seating units, called tubs. The tubs have a crosssection featuring a front wall and floor and a step up to a second level of seating,so that each tub accommodates a singlerow of seating. The horizontal surface for seats is 4 feet wide, while the largest tubsare 42 feet long with a front wall that is 21 inches high. Shockey cast 28 tubs forthis plush, luxury-level seating area.

The next higher seating sectionconsists of 10 rows of club seating. This level was cast using precast single, double, and triple risers. Like the luxury-suite level, the club level uses precast tub units for the front row. This level also offers party decks and three deck areas for television cameras.

PNC’s upper level contains 23 rows of seats. This level also features a combination of single, double, and triple risers. An emphasis was placed ontriple units, which are more efficient to transport and erect because they cover more seating area with one piece and one pick of the crane. The back supporting wall of the stadium was made of precast concrete, as were the vomitory walls, stairs and headers at the entrances to the upper-level seating.

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