Under starter's orders

The awe-inspiring City of Manchester Stadium is the centrepiece venue for the Games. It lies in the heart of the new Sportcity development, which is growing on a 146-acre area of industrial wasteground 1·5 km east of the city centre. Sports fans will watch athletics and the rugby sevens competition here before the Games close on 4 August.

But the Games form only the start of the stadium's life. After the last race is run and the anthems have faded, a second phase of building work will begin to transform it to Manchester City Football Club's new home, which means an extra 10 000 seats and a FIFA-standard pitch.

Ensuring the smooth completion of a structure that can satisfy both stages of its life has meant careful planning and tight timetables for m&e contractor Haden Young, with an immovable completion date of 10 March to cater for the start of the Jubilee Baton Relay on 11 March.

The first stage of construction involves completion of three sides of the final, permanent stadium, with a temporary stand making up the remainder for the duration of the Games. The second stage will see the replacement of the temporary stand and the increase in seats from 41 000 (3000 were added late in construction to satisfy ticket demand) to 48 000. This two-stage build strategy was necessary to cater for the running track that circles the pitch. The track needs a greater length than a football stadium could provide, plus a maximum 100 m line of sight from the stands to the centre circle – hence the position of the temporary stand, which elongates the stadium.

The stage for some of the additional seats has already been set, as Haden Young contracts manager Garry Saddler explains: "The current ground level is sited higher than it's eventually going to be. The bottom row of the west stand is underground at the moment. So all they do is dig down, expose the concrete, clean it down and fit the seats." In fact the lowest seat level is buried around 9 m underground and forms the roof of the basement area.

Four circular, concrete towers line either side of the stadium. These provide the main means of access to the side stands and hold the roof's supporting masts. The central cores of the four 'corner' towers house toilets; the others hold the main m&e plant for the stadium.

Two towers, one on each side of the stadium, are dedicated to electrical services. The plant is duplicated in each and they serve opposite sides, but they are linked by the hv installation to ensure a constant supply all round. A second hv connection is currently being installed by the local utilities company, having been removed from the original m&e contract as part of a cost-saving exercise.

The boiler plant is housed in one of the remaining towers, effectively leaving the core of the eighth tower virtually empty.

Installation and distribution of services from these plantrooms was a challenge. The plan was to avoid cluttering up corridors with service routes: the solution was an underground services "raceway". This external mains route runs around the three permanent sides of the stadium's perimeter and provides the main distribution ring for the site, carrying water, gas and the hv electrical mains between the towers and into the stadium.

Installation of the plant into the towers required close working with other construction team members, in particular the concrete subcontractor. As project engineer Paul Harrison explains: "Trying to get everything into position was quite difficult. What we did was cast a section [of the tower], then before the next section was cast, the plant was dropped in at that critical time by crane. This meant a lot of co-ordination with the concrete subcontractor. You had to time it right."

Focusing on the final goals
Arup Associates designed the m&e strategy for the stadium, with Haden Young responsible for the installation. The contractor won the project after being selected for the second stage of a two-stage tender. By then the main thrust of the services was designed: "[Arup] had done all the layout designs and then we coordinated the designs electrically and mechanically and produced working drawings for our installation teams," explains Haden's Garry Saddler. The firm is directly employed by current stadium owner, Manchester City Council, under management contractor Laing.

Designers from Haden Young's Leeds and Warrington offices began preparations for the project in January 2000, prior to the construction team moving onto site in September. Since then, the team has been site-based.

Much of the initial office-based work centred around an extensive value engineering exercise. Saddler explains: "The job was 30% over budget when it started life so we had to cut a third off the costs. The whole design was scaled down and specifications were reduced." The main changes resulting from this included the use of the Mannesmann stainless steel mechanical jointing system and Tectite copper push-fit conduit – mainly as labour-saving devices.

Although this process brought benefits to the client, it put pressure on the front-end of the construction programme. "We lost a lot of the front-end lead-in period because of the exercise with the value engineering," states Saddler, "The end date could not be moved so we literally gobbled up the planning time. We didn't arrive any later on site than we originally intended, but things that we'd planned to do, like getting into the towers, was delayed, as the towers themselves were delayed. We just had to do more work in a shorter period of time," he concludes.

Another stretch on the m&e installation period was the increasing of the contract scope to include the fit-out areas; an increase in financial terms from £8.5 million to £13.5 million. "The initial order value that we had was for the base build scheme and didn't include all the fit-out areas," explains Saddler. "They brought the fit-out areas in partway through the construction phase and needed connections for them, so we had interface activities between major fit-out works and major main build works."

To cope with this, Haden Young increased its labour force and changed scheduling of tasks to suit the building works. At peak times, the company had 150-170 employees on site and, although specialist areas such as fire alarms were subcontracted, Saddler stresses: "The whole team we have on site from the electrical and mechanical side is directly employed. The job couldn't be finished otherwise." The firm tackled the east and west stands together, with separate teams and foremen on each side. Each had a detailed programme of progress and regular meetings were held with Laing.

The original construction brief included the second stage construction so, come August, Haden Young and the other team members will return to complete the fourth stand and its associated systems. In August 2003, the City of Manchester Stadium will open to cheers once more, this time by the sound of a referee's whistle.