SEATTLE STORM CENTER FOR BASKETBALL PERFORMANCE
Seattle
Merit Award
Sent by: Sellen Construction
OWNER: barients RYAN
LEADING DESIGN COMPANY: ZGF
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Sellen Construction
CIVIL ENGINEERING: Coughlin Porter Lundeen
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING: Holmes
MEP ENGINEERING: PAE engineers
DESIGN ARCHITECT: Shiv Hattery
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Walker Macy
ACOUSTIC ENGINEERING: BRC Acoustics
SUBCONTRACTORS: Prime Electrical Services LLC; Plumbing Apollo; Counselor-Hunsaker; Bargreen Ellingson; Heffron Transport; RDH Building Science; Pacific Study
As the first facility built specifically for a WNBA franchise, this $64 million project represents an unprecedented investment in elite athletes. The state-of-the-art professional basketball facility was built on a 50,000 square meter plot in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood. Features include two side-by-side basketball courts, locker rooms, a player lounge and nutrition center, strength and conditioning training spaces, as well as the franchise’s business offices.
Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification, the installation is fully electric and houses a photovoltaic array on the roof. The structure was built with tiltable sandwich panels, which used eco-friendly and low-carbon concrete. But this also presented some challenges in the finishing and curing methods required for these mixes. Crews completed several mock-up pours, which allowed the construction team to place and finish the 80% slag mixes and practice installing sandwich panels.
One of the keys to offering low-carbon concrete was to reduce the amount of cement. To do this, the team identified areas, such as foundations and sloping walls, where the concrete was specified with a 56-day curing cycle instead of a 28-day curing cycle. This allowed the team to further reduce the amount of cement in the project’s concrete mixes while achieving the required strength and exceeding the targets for built-in carbon reductions. After 11 months, the project was completed on budget and on schedule in April 2024.
