Overcoming challenges
Having won the tender to build the new arena in late 2015, BAM was faced with a series of complex issues to overcome. Firstly, the site was only partly owned by the customer – Hull City Council – and negotiations over the remaining land proved more challenging than expected.
Then BAM had to contend with a series of redundant buildings on the site, which needed to be painstakingly demolished. Some of these old buildings had partially collapsed, others had been on fire. BAM also had to deal with dead wildlife, discarded needles from drug users and significant amounts of asbestos in their order to make the site safe.
The original plans for the arena had included refurbishing an existing multi-storey car park. But when BAM got involved in the project it soon became clear that this was impractical. The BAM team came up with a design and a business case to completely rebuild the car park, which Hull City Council accepted.
However this decision, as well as issues around the removal of a telecoms mast on the old car park, had an inevitable knock-on effect on the construction schedule. It was clear to both the Council and BAM that the new arena would not be finished during the 2017 City of Culture year. A revised completion date was jointly agreed for June 2018… and the BAM team successfully achieved this newly agreed deadline without a further day’s delay.
To address all these complexities, the BAM team carried out a significant amount of value-engineering work early on in the project. Their hard work paid off, as the project was not only delivered within the Council’s original budget but also maintained the high levels of quality required for such a prestigious landmark.
