Two words come up when Glenn Parvin, owner of CASS Sheet Metal, talks about Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena: “passion project.”
You see it across the job site: employee shirts that read “Arena Team 2017” and “25-year Detroit-based original,” and NHL Detroit Red Wings stickers on toolboxes and hard hats. No doubt, these sheet metal workers from SM Local 80 are proud to build the home of the Red Wings and NBA Pistons.
Third-year apprentice Colm Foley has been a Red Wings fan his entire life—and this year, he is installing custom panels on the many angles of the arena’s exterior. This is a job the city and the nation will see. This is work his grandchildren will see.
“It’s a pride thing, for sure, because of the team and how it looks,” Foley said. “It’s just a really cool project to be a part of. Everyone is pretty proud of it.”
Architectural exteriors boom with jobs, hours
The Little Caesars Arena is one of a growing number of professional stadiums or arenas for every major sport currently under construction or recently completed by union sheet metal workers.
“These stadiums and arenas are passion projects for sure, but they’re also part of a surge in architectural sheet metal across the country,” said Dan McCallum, architectural sheet metal specialist for the International Training Institute.
“With the economy improving, more projects like these, including commercial buildings, high-rises and the like, are coming online,” McCallum added. “That’s good for workers and contractors as well as their communities.”
Foley and his fellow apprentices are the ones learning on the job. But because the Architectural sheet metal exterior of Little Caesars Arena is unique in design and materials for the area, experienced hands are learning, too.
The building envelope has more than 800 versa wall panels, made of structural steel and laminated foam panel by Centria and fabricated by Crown Corr. The panels interlock and are installed with a rail system on a grid pattern. Every panel is labeled for a specific position on the exterior, and the jewel-shaped building has many inverted and angled surfaces.
“I like that you get to see what you’re doing,” Foley said. “I wouldn’t like putting HVAC duct up just to cover it with drywall. It’s good to make people ooh and aah when you’re done with it.”
Pride—and a hard deadline
Parvin knew this was a special project from the beginning, creating those custom T-shirts and giving rally-cry pep talks to the crew. More than 1,000 trades people are working on the site daily, he said, because all fun aside, at the end of the day, there is a deadline to meet.
“The Red Wings will play hockey in September, and everybody has to bring their A game. There is no saying, ‘We didn’t quite make it.’ There is no delay,” Parvin said. He doesn’t have to push hard, he said.
“We are putting people out there who want to excel,” he added. “Everyone in the company thinks it’s cool to be working on the arena.”
