Southeastern Wisconsin businesses
cash in on Green Bay project
If, heaven forbid, all of the toilets are flushed at halftime of the Green Bay Packers’ first regular season home game Sept. 8, and the Lambeau Field sanitary sewage system can’t handle the rush, John Kissinger knows he’s going to have one major headache.
"We’re responsible for making sure it doesn’t overrun Green Bay with sewage," says Kissinger.
No small task – though some Chicago Bears fans might find humor in such a disaster.
After all, the renovated Lambeau Field will have 572 more toilets than the old stadium had.
Kissinger is vice president of Milwaukee-based Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer & Associates, which is the civil site engineer and associate structural engineer for the Lambeau Field renovation project.
Kissinger’s company is one of about 43 southeastern Wisconsin firms that are leaving their imprints on the Lambeau renovation. From the sanitary system and the concrete, to the signage, Milwaukee-area companies are providing the materials and the expertise to expand and improve the hallowed Frozen Tundra.
Businesses based in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties have landed a total of $40.3 million in contracts for the Lambeau renovation.
The $295.2 million Lambeau renovation project is about 65% complete, meaning about $189.7 million has been spent so far, according to Packer board of directors member Susan Finco of Leonard & Finco Communications, Green Bay.
"They’re slightly ahead of schedule and on budget," Finco said. "They’ve been blessed the weather has been unbelievably good."
The Lambeau project also has been blessed to have access to businesses that are owned by minorities and women.
For the Lambeau work funded by $160 million in public bonds, the project is required by statute to aspire to giving 15% of its contracts to businesses owned by minorities and 5% to businesses owned by women.
According to a Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau report on Aug. 8, the district fell just short of those totals in the first quarter of its project, with 13.4% going to minority-owned businesses and 3.4% going to women-owned businesses.
However, the state agency concluded the Lambeau project leadership "has made a good-faith effort to meet its statutory goals."
The Lambeau project is seeking to exceed the minority and women-owned business participation goals for the entire $295.2 million, not merely the portion that is publicly funded, said Patrick Webb, executive director of the Green Bay/Brown County Professional Stadium District Board.
"This is the first project in this area that has had a substantial goal (for minority and women recruiting)," Webb said.
In fact, two Milwaukee-area companies won contracts to make sure diversity is achieved in the Lambeau project.
Prism Technical Management & Marketing Services, Germantown, was hired by Turner Construction Co., New York, the general contractor for the Lambeau renovation, to serve as the coordinator for the project’s diversity program. Prism president Randy Crump, who is an African American, and his company received a $200,000 contract to oversee the program.
Carla Cross, president of Cross Management Services, Milwaukee, landed a $229,000 contract to serve as an independent monitor of the project’s diversity.
"They’ve done a good job, a capable job, of making that a reality," said Stuart Zadra, project director of Madison-based Hammes Co. Sports & Entertainment, a division of Hammes Co., Brookfield. Hammes Co. is the project coordinator for the Lambeau renovation.
Cross and her four employees make site visits, read cancelled checks and study other aspects of a company’s business to verify that it is indeed owned by a minority or a woman.
"It’s a pretty extensive process before a company can be certified," said Cross, who started her firm in 1997 and hopes to use her experience in the Lambeau project and in the Miller Park project in Milwaukee to secure contracts for other large construction projects in the nation.
In total so far, southeastern Wisconsin companies owned by minorities or women have secured $17.3 million in contracts for the Lambeau project.
Although the process of securing and verifying contracts with businesses owned by minorities or women has placed an extra burden on the project, the benefits of the diversity far outweigh the costs, according to John Jones, executive vice president and chief operating officer.
"We viewed that as a significant challenge coming into the project, but we believed it was an opportunity. We’ve seen minorities entering training opportunities and, hopefully, finding some potential career options that those persons might not have known existed for them," Jones said. "We think that’s a great credit to them, and a great credit to the approach Hammes and Turner have taken. We’re close. And we’re proud that we’re close. We still have more of the project to go, but we hope we can even do better as we go forward."
Skyway, Inc., a Milwaukee general contracting and painting firm that won a $20,000 contract to paint the Packers Team Store, plans to use its Lambeau accomplishments to foster growth of its business, according to Dereck McClendon, executive vice president of the firm.
"I intend to take this thing across country, absolutely," McClendon said. "It has helped already. I’m already getting work out of the Green Bay area and all the way back home. It’s opening doors. We intend to hire more people."
Like many subcontractors, McClendon already has completed his Lambeau work in time for the 2002 football season.
"On time" and "on budget" was the same refrain from officials involved with the construction of Miller Park in the early phases of that project. Ultimately, of course, a deadly crane accident and some other factors delayed the Miller Park project, and its costs rose substantially over its original estimates, leaving taxpayers at risk of picking up the overruns.
In the Lambeau project, any cost overruns will be paid by the Green Bay Packers. That concession was part of the negotiations needed to persuade enough voters in Brown County to pay a half-cent sales tax to finance $160 million of the project.
"The Packers are responsible for 100% of any overrun," Webb said.
In the end, the new Lambeau Field will look like a new stadium and have all the amenities and revenue-generating features of a new stadium, but it will still capture the history, the intimacy and the charm of the old Lambeau Field, Zadra said.
In fact, some of the concrete from the original players’ tunnel, in which the likes of Starr, Nitschke and Horning once trod, was transplanted into Lambeau’s new tunnel. That preservation was suggested by Mike Sherman, the Packer’s coach and general manager.
At first glance from the outside, the "new" Lambeau Field doesn’t look anything like the "old" Lambeau Field. Gone are the green steel beams and wood that gave the stadium such a monolithic signature appearance.
The renovated Lambeau’s new brown-brick exterior is much like that of any of the other retro-looking new stadiums that have been built in recent years, including Miller Park.
Inside, the seating bowl is being extended upward, but the view inside the stadium is much the same. The difference is in the amenities – a new upper concourse will take fans right to their seats, other concourses have been widened and 572 toilets have been added.
In addition, the Titletown Atrium will include the new Packer Hall of Fame, the huge new Packer Pro Shop, special-event facilities, a brew pub, restaurants and fan interactive areas.
In sum, it’s the same Lambeau, but it is larger and more fan-friendly. And it also offers the Packers more sources of revenue.
"The ability to save Lambeau was an objective early on …. The events and the champions that walked on that field," Zadra said. "We wanted to keep that intact."
Aug. 30, 2002 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
