Details
Ground was broken for the arena on June 24, 2005, and construction completed on October 11, 2007. The final design, by the Downtown Arena Design Team (a collaboration of the architectural firms Populous (then HOK Sport), 360 Architecture, Rafael Architects and Ellerbe Becket), was selected in August 2005. The construction manager responsible for the entire project was M.A. Mortenson Company, based out of Minneapolis, MN. The complete exterior glass facade system, all metal panels for the adjacent buildings and all accessory metal cladding was custom designed, detailed and supplied by Overgaard Ltd. Hong Kong to Architectural Wall Systems, the Des Moines, Iowa based glazing contractor who installed the building envelope. In total there are approximately 13,000 m² (139,932 square feet) of double insulated glass and 5,000 m² (53,820 square feet) painted aluminum curtain wall panels. In addition there are roughly 200 tons of system profiles and accessories. All of the 2,404 individual glass units on the main building were produced sequentially and completely assembled prior to shipping. The 5,000,000 lbs of rebar used in construction was detailed, farbricated and supplied by The Carter-Waters Corporation of Kansas City. The arena also features a work of public art, The Moons, by artist Chris Doyle, commissioned by the Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission (KCMAC).
The Big 12 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament was held at Sprint Center in 2008, marking the tournament's return to Kansas City after three years in Dallas and Oklahoma City. After returning to Oklahoma City in 2009, the Sprint Center again hosted the tournament in 2010 and 2011. It is scheduled to be the tourney site through 2014.
The arena also houses the College Basketball Experience and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame which, is located at 1301 Grand Boulevard connected to Sprint Center.
The outside of the arena is entirely glass. Inside it has state of the art technology with a 360 degree LED video screen. This facility allows Kansas City to draw most concerts touring the United States. There has been speculation of an NBA or NHL team relocating to Sprint Center, but as of yet no definitive plans have been announced.
Sprint Center opened on time and on budget on October 10 at 10:10 am. A tour lasted from 10:10 am – 10:10 pm for those who wanted to see it to grab a ticket at the box office. The tour consisted of the College Basketball Experience, two open concession stands: "Taco Taco" and "Oak Street Pizza"; a free drink from UMB Bank and other free items: a UMB Bank cup, a UMB Bank frisbee, and a UMB Bank ice scraper. UMB Bank is the only ATM in the new arena because it is a Sprint Center Founding Partner along with Farmland, The University of Kansas Hospital, QuikTrip, and Olevia. There are other Sprint Center Founding Partners: H&R Block, Toyota, American Century Investments, YRC Worldwide, and Time Warner Cable of Kansas City.
Read more about this topic: Sprint Center
Famous quotes containing the word details:
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Anyone can see that to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the knee in the kitchen, with constant calls to cooking and other details of housework to punctuate the paragraphs, was a more difficult achievement than to write it at leisure in a quiet room.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)