By JILL ROSENFELD

Staff Reporter

The subway to the Valley is years from completion, a new NFL football stadium remains just a dream, and neighbors are still fighting that Long Beach Freeway extension in South Pasadena.

But anyone who thinks that nothing can get done quickly in L.A. has only to look a few blocks south of downtown. There, in the shadow of the Convention Center, the new Staples Center arena is beginning to take shape, less than a year after the City Council gave its blessing.

“The schedule is extremely tight,” said Jon Ziegler, director of civil engineering for A.C. Martin Partners, which is helping build the $305 million facility. “We have to open the arena by the first hockey game in 1999 and that is not a flexible date. We have to be finished, which is why the contractor is out at night.”

Indeed, construction goes on six days a week, from 6 a.m. until midnight, as general contractor PCL Construction Services Inc. hurries to complete nearly a million square feet of seating, concourses and offices in time for the Kings’ 1999 season.

As general contractor, Edmonton, Canada-based PCL is responsible for coordinating the activities of the dozens of subcontractors on the site from the plumbers and engineers to acoustic consultants and landscape architects. PCL was hired by L.A. Arena Co., the company founded by Kings co-owners Edward P. Roski Jr. and Philip Anschutz.

“We do all of the concrete work ourselves, and subcontract the balance of the work,” said Construction Manager Vern Miller. “We have to coordinate and schedule all of the trades. We’ve pulled together a million man-hours in the field within 18 months.

“It’s a very tight site,” he added. “That means we have to plan delivery and storage of materials, and limit the amount of material we keep on the site to what we can use in a week. That will become more significant as construction comes along and we build the interior walls and structures.”

There are stiff fines for finishing late and a substantial monetary incentive for finishing early. Construction officials won’t disclose the amounts at stake, but to meet their deadlines they have some 250 workers at the site now and eventually as many as 900 will be on the job.

“It’s a big dance,” said Jerry Gantney, principal engineer for Montgomery Watson Americas Inc., which was responsible for rerouting the old sewer and storm drains. “Everyone is trying to avoid stepping on each other.”

The foundation level, hard-packed dirt about 15 feet below the street, is alive with activity. Three sections of “sheer wall,” load-bearing interior walls that will separate the main bowl from the concourse areas, now form a massive Stonehenge-like circle at the site.

Each sheer wall (there will be four) marks a quadrant of the building. Four feet thick at the base, the walls are designed to remain standing even in the event of a major earthquake.

“Twenty years from now, the arena may have slid its way up to San Francisco from all the earthquakes, but the building will still be intact,” said Staples Center Vice President Kevin Murphy.

Atop one of the walls, carpenter Ralph “Vinnie” Timpano has buckled himself to the structure and is working to secure heavy reinforcing steel.

“In the old days, guys like me used to get a ride up to the top on the ball of the crane,” Timpano said. Modern safety rules now prevent such practices, so Timpano climbs a ladder to access the catwalks.

The project has posed a variety of challenges since its March 26 groundbreaking, from finding enough qualified workers to fighting often searing temperatures.

Because the ground had to be excavated for the arena, one of the first challenges was to relocate underground sewer lines and storm drains a job that fell to Gantney of Montgomery Watson.

These were no small pipes, but key arteries for the entire system known as trunk mains. The storm drains were 6 feet high and 6 feet wide, and the sewer pipe was more than 5 feet in diameter.

City maps provide only a rough guide to the underground world.

“You hope and pray the maps are up to date, but the reality is, they’re not,” said Gantney. “Sometimes there is no good answer as to what it is they’ve found, so you do the least dangerous thing you can. If they hit a live power line, someone could get killed. Or if they hit a water main, and it shuts down, no one has water.” Digging proceeds slowly, often by hand.

The faulty maps can also create design problems. In one instance, workers painstakingly connected a new water line into an abandoned pipeline, which had been incorrectly labeled on an old map.

“We turned on the water and it gushed straight up in the air, like a geyser,” said Gantney. “It was a huge waste of work. And unfortunately this happened on a weekend; I didn’t find out until I came in on Monday morning.”

Because the Convention Center remains open and still needs service from its utilities, the plumbers are “hot tapping” the pipes, rerouting them without shutting down the system, an expensive and difficult way to work.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held as soon as the rerouting was complete, in March of this year. Excavation was handled by general contractor PCL. The foundation level was then graded, and various subcontractors, including plumbers and electricians, started work at the site.

The electricians’ first task was to bring conduits from public utility feeders under Figueroa Street to the complex’s distribution area, and then to lay a network of power lines, contained in fat plastic pipes, about two feet under the foundation level.

Because of the sophisticated lighting and telecommunications systems wired throughout, the building has a capacity for 14 megawatts of power enough to run a small town.

The load will be divided between four power substations, each one servicing a single quadrant, and one additional substation, said Van Polwort, senior project manager for Rosendin Electrical.

From Polwort’s perspective, the biggest challenge is the tight schedule and the “stacking of trades” with plumbers, mechanical contractors and others all working at the same time.

At the end of May, plumbers started work on the pipes that will service the locker rooms, restrooms and other bottom-floor facilities. This is called the “deep underground package,” because it is installed about eight feet under the foundation level, said Bob Guthrie of M-E Engineers/Hayakawa Associates, which designed the plumbing and fire systems.

While the underground pipes were being laid, workers started to dig and then pour the square concrete footings for the columns, which are just now starting to be erected. The columns are pre-cast in Rialto by A.T. Curd Structures Inc., a subsidiary of general contractor PCL, and then shipped to the site whole.

Some of the columns are five stories high, and have to be specially routed and transported at night, so as not to impede freeway traffic.

A.T. Curd’s working area consists of 25 acres of flat asphalt, and the yard has been impossibly hot in the last couple of weeks, said Vince Oliveri, the plant engineer. The casting is done outside, in the sun, and the heat that radiates from the steel forms and reinforcing bars is intense.

“It’s like sunbathing in a car,” Oliveri said. “We’ve had several people actually pass out here from the heat. Several other people consequently quit, too.”

Moreover, because of staffing needs the plant is operating 24 hours a day, with 180 employees, instead of its usual 70 employees some of those hired have never done heavy work outside.

PCL is also handling construction of the massive structural sheer walls that form the shell of the arena, and the stepped concrete walls, which will support the stands.

To build a section of sheer wall, workers construct a metal mold, and then pack it with a heavy cage of reinforcing bar. The mold is then filled with concrete, which hardens in place and creates the wall. The metal molds are then removed and hauled up to the next level, and the process is repeated.

So far, no major injuries have occurred during the arena construction project. Breaks have been rare, but one occurred on July 14, when arena executives, news media in tow, descended to the foundation level to christen the first column with champagne.

A dozen or so workers traipsed up from the work site to the press area, helping themselves to doughnuts, juice and coffee.

“It’s hot out there,” said Danny Velasquez, who hauls water for the other workmen. “I myself was getting dehydrated. But it’s great working on this project, me being a sports fan and all.”