Merit Award - Greater than $200 million

The new home of the Seattle Kraken scores a hat trick: the near-total demolition of the existing structure and construction of a largely below-grade arena while keeping the landmarked facade and iconic roof intact, completed to meet the NHL schedule, with a commitment to being the first net-zero certified arena in the world.

Judge comment: “The challenge on this project was taking an existing structure, trying to keep the facade and the roof in place while the interior was gutted. There was excavation and an intense amount of shoring to keep the project stable during the construction process and do that on a very short timeframe. That succeeded in large part thanks to early involvement of the structural steel contractor, moving a lot of the decision-making earlier in the timeline of the project and allowing some of the coordination issues to go away before they would have even come up: during construction. There’s a lot of value in steel and a lot of things we can brag about with steel, and this is just a case where that shines.“ -Mark Trimble, senior vice president, American Institute of Steel Construction

Owner: Oak View Group, Los Angeles
Owner’s representative: CAA ICON, Denver
Architect: Populous, Kansas City, Mo.
Structural engineer: Thornton Tomasetti, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.
Fabricator/detailer: LeJeune Steel Company, Minneapolis *AISC full member, AISC-Certified building fabricator*
General contractor: Mortenson, Kirkland, Wash.
Erector: Danny's Construction Company *AISC associate member, AISC-Certified erector*
Civil engineer: DCI Engineers, Seattle