Denver Convention Center expansion built to last with help of steel and concrete inspection services

Client

City and County of Denver, Dept. of Transportation and Infrastructure

Location

Denver, CO

Challenge

Convention centers are large, open facilities meant to bring people together. The City and County of Denver (CCD) entrusted our Denver office with inspecting materials for a major expansion to the Colorado Convention Center. The project included an 80,000-square-foot multipurpose room with a rooftop terrace, 150,000 square feet of meeting space, and 600,000 square feet of exhibit space. Large facilities naturally require a significant amount of structural steel and concrete to be built safely. A 300-ton crawler crane on the roof – used to position massive steel beams – could not be moved until the newly-placed concrete below was strong enough to support movement, creating a unique challenge for Terracon. Finally, coordinating multiple scopes of work simultaneously required proper staffing support and seamless communication to keep project schedules on track. 

Solution

A team of 15 from the Denver office, including a full-time certified welding inspector (CWI) and materials testing technicians, spent approximately 2 years on the project with the support of additional CWI and technician staff as well as local M/WBE firms to meet Denver requirements. When it came time for the crawler crane to move during the construction process, we placed maturity sensors on the high-strength concrete columns underneath. The sensors were monitored by our team daily to give our client real-time feedback on the concrete.

This saved the client the cost and time of additional laboratory testing. When the new columns reached the required strength, our team notified the project team that the crane could be moved. Our team participated in bi-weekly quality control (QC) meetings with CCD, the general contractor, and other construction consulting firms to track deviations and confirm personnel availability for future work. This helped us streamline the schedules of our inspectors and technicians to avoid accruing excess standby time. Our CWI also worked with steel erectors to prioritize inspection locations and further limit downtime. 

Results

The partnership between our office and CCD was a resounding success. We issued five temporary occupancy certificates and final letters for over 15 permits that allowed the city to close out and complete specific areas of the project as the overall expansion progressed. With 650 steel reports distributed between April 2021 and project completion in January 2024, it was one of – if not the largest – steel projects in the history of our local office. With dedicated resources, communication, and a commitment to delivering accurate, reliable data, we kept the general contractor and their subcontractors on track with no delays.