FedEx Field

The 128-foot-high, seven-level home of the NFL’s Washington Redskins boasts a natural-grass field with 80,000 seats including 208 luxury suites and 15,000 club seats. Completed under an incredibly tight 17 month schedule, the stadium was the fastest-built facility of its kind when it was completed in 1997, in time for the Washington Redskins’ first home game of the football season.

Building the stadium in 17 months required an aggressive approach to all aspects of the project. For the structure, Clark used two forms of concrete work. A table form was used for reinforced concrete and, as construction of the structure progressed, conventional formwork was added, doubling productivity. When the concrete operation experienced over 65 lost-weather days, Clark revised the sequence of the concrete pours to increase efficiency.

Critical precast and steel fabrications were closely monitored to ensure timely delivery and erection. In addition, when Clark recognized potential delays in paving the parking lots, the gravel sub-base was changed to soil cement to allow paving to begin in the winter months. The exterior concourses, with towering floor-to-ceiling heights of over 20 feet, were also temporarily enclosed and heated to allow the installation of masonry to continue through the coldest of winter months.

As a result, the project team achieved the following critical goals to meet the schedule:

• bulk excavation of 1,650,000 cubic yards of earth in 16 months
• placement of 1750 steel piles in three months
• pouring of almost 65,000 cubic yards of concrete in 7 months
• substantial completion of the erection of more than 2800 pieces of precast in six months
• substantial completion of the erection of more than 3000 pieces of steel in six months
• installation of 80,116 stadium seats in six months
• placement of 150,000 tons of asphalt in seven months

Challenges faced by the project during construction included hitting a pocket of water 25 feet below grade while digging one of three elevator pits. Water was pumped out of this pit for six months while the area was stabilized with a series of 20-foot-deep gravel-filled trenches. In addition, Clark redesigned the foundation to facilitate meeting the schedule. Instead of the original precast concrete pile design, the stadium was built using steel piles, which were better suited to the varied soil conditions throughout the site.