Ralph Englestad Arena, Grand Forks, N.D.

   With a price tag of $104 million, it’s also easy to believe money would be no object in finishing this grand venue in Grand Forks, N.D. However, when it came time to choosing flooring for the arena’s public spaces, the decision was made to go with granite rather than terrazzo because of the cost and speed of installation.
   The end result is a surface that offers the durability the building needs, while providing a look that strongly compliments the structure’s brick and polished block construction.
   Engelstad, who passed away in November 2002, attended the University of North Dakota (UND) as a hockey player. He then went on to make a fortune in construction and through development of the Imperial Palace casinos in Las Vegas and Biloxi, Miss.
   It’s not that Engelstad hadn’t already been generous to the school. Among his other donations was a substantial collection of the papers of Gen. George S. Patton. However, Chris Semrau, director of events and media relations for the arena, says university officials had not approached Engelstad when he announced the donation in late 1998.
   “This facility was donated strictly by Mr. Engelstad because of his vision to provide the finest college hockey facility in the nation to the university,” Semrau says. “At the time it was the sixth-largest donation in higher-education history, and it’s hard to fathom what it means when an announcement like this comes.”
   Semrau says once the festivities surrounding the announcement of the donation wore off, there was also some concern about the amount of work required to make the arena a reality. Besides his money, Engelstad took an active role in bringing the project to fruition, starting with hiring the architects.
   Jim Kobetsky, a partner in the Grand Forks, N.D.-based Schoen Associates and the principal designer on the project, says Engelstad interviewed architects around the country but decided to keep a local firm involved with the project.
   “He looked for a firm he felt was capable of handling the project,” says Kobetsky. “We’ve had about 20 years experience in the architectural business, and we were fortunate enough to be hired.”
   Both university athletic officials and Engelstad provided the designers with input on what they felt it would take to make the arena the best in the country for collegiate hockey.
   “Engelstad worked on this project daily,” says Kobetsky. “We were in conversations with him three, four sometimes five times a day on this project. We also worked closely with the university – the coaches, players and athletic directors – to determine what their needs are.”
   Engelstad had one other key request: the building needed to be ready for the university to kick off the 2001-2002 hockey season. With the ground breaking in December 1999, the entire project had to be completed within a very tight schedule.
   Because of that time schedule, the job was bid in multiple packages, with the Earth City, Mo.-based The Challenge Group, hired by Engelstad to oversee the entire project. That company’s D. Lynn Whitt, who served as the program manager for the job, isn’t inexperienced with projects of this scale and larger. The firm filled a similar role in the construction of St. Louis’ TWA (now Edward D. Jones) Dome a few years ago.
   “It was a fairly hectic schedule,” Whitt acknowledges of the 22 months in which the arena was constructed.
  
TIME FACTOR
   One of the victims of that schedule was the architects’ plan to use terrazzo as the main flooring material for the arena’s public spaces. The Los Angeles-based Corradini Corp. had already been chosen to supply and install the terrazzo when it became apparent it wasn’t the best product for the job.
   “The nature of the timing it took to put it in place became a problem,” says Schoen’s Kobetsky. “As an alternative, we turned to granite, because it was easier to build into the construction model.”
   The architects designed the building with what Kobetsky calls, “an Ivy League look,” featuring warm brick colors with stone accents, and to replace the terrazzo, the decision was made to go with a mixture of red and cream granites on the 110,000 ft² of interior flooring.
   “The cream-colored granite is the main base, which we think gives it a real richness,” says Kobetsky. “It has a red vein going through it, and then we have dark red accent granite. The two tie in with the red and cream outside.”
   To enhance the look of the tiles, the architects opted to use brass inserts to provide highlights. In addition, all the counters at the concession stands are in granite, the large steel grates that divide up the facility are set in granite, and the university’s Fighting Sioux logo was cut into the floor in seven different areas – each 17’ across.
   While the flooring might have changed, the contractor to install it didn’t. Bill Wagner, the Las Vegas-based Nevada division manager for Corradini, says that while his company is one of the oldest in the country to sell and install terrazzo, it also sells stone flooring.
   The terrazzo might have presented a scheduling problem, but making the switch to granite presented its own challenge. Because of the tight timeframe, the tile had to be onsite 120 days after the order was placed. For help in meeting that goal, Corradini turned to stone specifier and importer SpecCeramics of Anaheim, Calif.
   David Leal, SpecCeramics’ president, says his firm and Corradini have worked closely on a number of projects, including Los Angeles’ Staples Center.
   “Ron Corradini, the company CEO (chief executive officer), and I flew to Grand Forks and had a meeting with the design team,” says Leal. “At that point, it was determined they would use two different colors of granite and asked if we could deliver 110,000 ft² of material in 120 days. I said that we could, and the deal was struck right there.”
   Leal says while the design team had looked at stones from Italy, Brazil and India, it happened that both the colors they selected were Indian stones.
   “I sourced the material directly from India,” Leal explains. “I got in touch with a couple different quarries, got the best possible product I could for the best possible price, and we were able to deliver approximately 19 containers of 16” X 16” granite tiles on time.”
   Despite the sheer volume of the order, Leal says from his standpoint the only real problem was the contractor forgetting to order some special size cuts until near the end of the delivery, “But, for the most part, everything went extremely smooth.”
   Corradini’s Wagner says things weren’t quite as pleasant from the installation side of the job. Because of the construction schedule, the 12-15 people he had working onsite during the three months the job took to install were forced to contend with weather problems.
   “The work had to be done in sequence,” he says. “They moved around the arena with the installation, and it was pretty cold for part of the job, even though the building was heated. There was also a lot of leakage before the roof was finished out. The biggest problem was water, because they had to deal with a lot of rain.”
   Other than that, though, he says the job went smoothly, including the installation of the school logo mosaics, which were cut on a waterjet by Minneapolis-based Pietra Bella.
   “We have our own waterjet at our corporate office, but it was more cost-effective to have it done in Minneapolis and shipped straight to Grand Forks,” Wagner explains.
   Whitt, the program manager for the project, agrees that things went relatively smoothly considering the scope of the project. He says he was impressed at the amount of time Corradini spent putting down fabric to deal with the shrinkage cracks in the structure, as well as the effort that went into matching the patterns with the column lines.
   “Other than the press of time in having to cover a lot of area in a short time, there didn’t seem to be any particular issues,” Whitt says. “The tile is a spectacular addition to a building that already had a lot of intriguing and unique features in regards to its masonry. It blended well and should provide a very durable surface for many years.”
   While stone production and installation drew rave reviews, the seven logo mosaics – along with the logo itself and the school’s Fighting Sioux nickname – are still part of a controversy. Some Native American groups protest the continued use of the tribal name and the logo (designed by Bennett Brien, a UND alumnus and a Chippewa), although the school’s governing board agreed unanimously to keep the nickname in 2001.
  
SPECIAL ATTRACTION
   Semrau says “The Ralph” as it has come to be known, has been a special structure almost since the groundbreaking. For instance, because of the tight construction schedule and many local workers who participated in the construction, he says it was possible to see crews from the different subcontractors exchanging information as the building was going up.
   “They wanted this building to last for many generations and be a landmark in Grand Forks,” he says.
   And, it has become that. Semrau says recent data show the Ralph L. Engelstad Arena is one of North Dakota’s top tourist attractions. It’s also drawn a host of other events to the community, including a recent National Hockey League (NHL) match-up between the Minnesota Wild and the St. Louis Blues. St. Louis then remained in Grand Forks and completed its 2003 training camp at the arena.
   The arena is also doing its job of serving as an inducement to some of North America’s best young hockey players to attend the university.
   “It’s interesting to watch the coaches give these young recruits tours,” he says. “It’s often, ‘Coach, where do I sign?’ Just to play in a facility like this is quite an experience and many players who go on to play as professionals don’t get to play in facilities like this once they leave here.”
   And, while it’s doubtful a would-be student-athlete is going to choose his school based on the arena floors, Semrau says they are a nice addition to the overall presentation of the arena.
   “Of course, it’s cost-effective and the longevity of it is definitely substantial,” he concludes. “But, it’s also very classy. Ralph wanted guests and patrons of the facility to have the impression that they’re in a world-class building.”

Client: Ralph L. Engelstad, Las Vegas, for the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D.
Designer: Schoen Associates, Grand Forks, N.D.
Construction Program Manager: The Challenge Group, Earth City, Mo.
Stone Installer: Corradini Corp., Los Angeles
Stone Specifier and Importer: SpecCeramics, Anaheim, Ca.

This article first appeared in the November 2003 print edition of Stone Business. ©2003 Western Business Media Inc.