First the fence goes up, and then the facility comes down.
That’s what’s going to start happening at century-old Ryan Field starting next week, as Northwestern University makes way for a new, $800 million football stadium with the same name.
Representatives of Central Street Consortium, the construction company partnership (Turner Construction and Walsh Construction) doing both the tear-down and the build-up, told a virtual 7th Ward meeting Thursday night that “site mobilization,” the installation of fencing around the location, bringing in trailers, and staging equipment will start in the week of Jan. 22.
One week later, four months’ worth of heavy demolition begins, leading into the lengthy process of putting up the new, 35,000 seat stadium.
The new Ryan Field is supposed to open in the fall of 2026. No word yet on where the Wildcats football team will play until then.
Most of the questions from the 100 or so people on the Zoom session dealt with issues such as controlling dust, noise, vibrations, and water runoff from the project, as well as how trucks would get to and from the site.
University, city, and construction company reps all said a variety of monitoring will be in effect.
Andrew San Roman, with the city’s Building Department, said, “If there are any major concerns on site we’re prepared to stop work” until the problems are resolved, although he said that’s not expected to be necessary.
The city’s 311 website will be getting a special section for citizen stadium construction complaints.
Work will take place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and from 8 a.m.to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
Mike Musial, with the construction consortium, said there will be on-site flaggers to wave trucks in and out safely.
Those flaggers, he said, will be “eyes on the ground to watch for pedestrians,” and will be located at every construction gate.
Trucks will leave the stadium site, turn left on Central, then right on Sherman, and right again at Emerson/Golf to get to the interstate highway.
That route was chosen to keep truck traffic away from Central Street businesses west of Green Bay Road.
About 150-200 workers will be involved in the project on a typical day, construction representatives stated.
They will not be allowed to park on neighborhood streets, but rather, will leave their cars in city garages and be bused in by the contractors.
One stadium neighbor, who supports the construction, wondered if there would be a giant implosion of the old stadium, which people might find interesting to watch.
But the answer is no.
Musial said “there will be no wrecking balls, no explosions.”
The old facility will be taken down pretty much the same way it was put up, mechanically, that is … “piece by piece.”
Ald. Eleanor Revelle (7th) said there will be future meetings to answer more questions.