The bleary-eyed Beitel and others went to breakfast at Tee Jaye’s and a few returned to the arena for the morning dedication. “Every person was the perfect person for their job.” installed the ventilation, heating, cooling and plumbing.
“We were like the perfect team, like the ’85 Chicago Bears,” said Charlie Steitz, whose Sauer Group Inc. Built at the cost of $175 million, it serves as a monument to good planning and craftsmanship. Twenty years after ground was broken in 1998, Nationwide Arena remains one of the NHL’s best-preserved venues. Some stadiums age faster than sitting presidents. Down below, at event level, the workers frolicked on the ice, intoxicated not as much by the alcohol but the tremendous sense of accomplishment. Hours before city and state leaders would speak to the public and media, Beitel just wanted his men to celebrate.Īsman played the role of Andy Dufresne, the prisoner who breaks into the Shawshank office to commandeer the public address system and release the sound of sweet music to the masses. In the years to come, it would anchor a district that drew suburbanites back downtown and brought captains of sports industry from across the nation to learn how Nationwide Realty Investors had managed such a triumph of urban renewal.īut no such thoughts crossed the minds of Beitel and his 15 to 20 workers who were still in the building at 1:30 a.m. The 18,144-seat building, with its stunning brick and glass facade, was complete. It had been Beitel’s task to coordinate the schedules of 50 to 60 subcontractors to ensure they delivered a finished product on time.
8, after the last bolt had been tightened and final coat of paint applied, project manager Jeff Beitel brought nearly two years of endless labor to a halt.
I went out to my vehicle and grabbed some CDs and just cranked the music while some of the guys just slid across the ice.” “I don’t even know if I’m supposed to say this, but we just partied,” said Jeff Asman, president of The Painting Company and one of the hundreds of workers who helped build Nationwide Arena.
On the virgin ice surface, a morning skate was underway that didn’t involve any Blue Jackets, but men with no hockey experience or blades on their feet. 9, 2000, a soundcheck was being conducted by men who didn’t know a mixing console from an amplifier. COLUMBUS, Ohio - Less than 48 hours before Tim McGraw and Faith Hill opened Nationwide Arena on Sept.
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