Downtown Spokane Stadium

Project Overview

We were hired to remove 12,500 yards of bedrock to make way for a new sports stadium for field events. This 5,000-seat stadium would be the new location for football and soccer games for Spokane Public Schools. The stadium would also host a new professional soccer team via the United Soccer League as well as concerts, large-scale special events, and other sporting events. This project included 10,800 yards of blasting for removal.

Details

Challenges

Blasting operations were close-quarters and very high risk. The blasting area was within 30 feet of a busy road that contained water, sewer, storm, and dry utility infrastructure. KXLY News’ building was within 120 feet of the edge of the blasting zone and the new Podium sports complex was located within 200 feet of blasting operations. Efforts to remove rock by method other than blasting by the prime contractor proved fruitless. They tried using a D-11 cat with a single shank ripper and honeycomb drilling for hydraulic hoe ramming methods. Once those methods were deemed unproductive, blasting operations began.

The honeycombing created a higher risk factor of rock ejection from the blast site. We used 15 blasting mats to cover each individual blast to protect surrounding structures from flyrock. The initial blast area was the closest to infrastructure and also honeycombed as this was the critical path schedule-wise for the prime contractor. Blasting in this area was tedious at best and results varied due to the loss of pressures due to the perforated ground. Some minimal reblast was needed to get the area to an acceptable grade.

Outcome

Once the pre-drilled area was complete, we were able to shoot the designed blast patterns and the blasting gained the advantages of having relief and a more conducive site-specific blast design.

Depth of blast posed another challenge. In most areas the cuts were 0-12 feet, however there were elevator pits, vaults, water, and sewer lines in the blast area that were much deeper. To mitigate the depth issue, we chose to blast these areas as a second lift rather than trying to pull grade in deep confined areas with decked holes.

Blasting was completed successfully and the stadium opened in Fall 2023.

(Rendering courtesy of www.spokaneschools.org)

Work With Us

We currently operate throughout the Western United States. We perform all applications of drilling and blasting including large-scale commercial quarries, heavy construction, road and highway construction, residential and commercial development, and utility and trenchline work.