A West Sacramento-based concrete conglomerate – with major production facilities in Woodland – has been named to help build the new San Francisco 49ers stadium in Santa Clara, set to open by the start of the 2014 NFL season.
Clark Pacific will manufacture and install about 21,000 tons of precast components, including treads, risers and steps for the stadium seating as well as various stadium walls, company officials announced Wednesday.
“The stadium components will be produced at our plants in both West Sacramento and Woodland,” said Bob Clark, president of operations for Clark Pacific, in a news release. “To complete the project on time, we will be hiring additional staff over the next several months.”
Eighty to 100 new hires are expected for the job, 80 percent of which will be for the Woodland plant, said Don Clark, president of business development for Clark Pacific, in a telephone interview with The Democrat.
The new $1.2 billion, 68,500-seat stadium will feature 2,000 panels, or 500,040 square feet of panels from Clark Pacific.
“If you take our average size project, this is about five times bigger,” Don Clark said. “Plus, it’s a very iconic structure. Our men are very excited to work on it since a lot of them are 49er fans.”
Of the project’s estimated $15 million to $20 million value, about half will go back into the Yolo County community, Don Clark said.
The facility is being delivered as a design-build project by a joint venture of Turner Construction and Devcon Construction and design work by architect HNTB. All precast work will be completed by early 2013, Don Clark said.
“This is an important, highly visible project for Santa Clara and the San Francisco Bay Area, and it has a very demanding schedule,” Don Clark said. “Precast concrete is a critical aspect of Turner/Devcon’s strategy to quickly build a high-quality project that will successfully serve the community for decades to come.”
Clark Pacific will begin casting the project in May and installation will start in September by using four cranes at night to assemble the four areas of the stadium, according to Don Clark.
Clark Pacific opened its Woodland facility in July 2008 at the former site of the Spreckels Sugar Mill plant, a sugar processing company that closed down in 2002. The property is located at County Road 18C and Highway 113, north of Woodland.
It seems Clark Pacific is channeling the same zenith Spreckels realized in the 1930s as a highly profitable and a major employer of local workers.
Now, 80 years later, the plant will be flexing its full potential. In addition to the 49ers stadium, the company will be pre-casting for two parking structure jobs simultaneously, also to be completed by early 2013. One parking structure will be at Stanford University and the other will be for Moffet Field in Mountain View.
“In general, we’ve all been through a very difficult recession,” Don Clark said. “This is a very large job that will help get the (Woodland) facility back up and running.”
The Woodland facility’s inaugural project, a parking structure at the Norman Mineta San Jose International Airport, is the largest precast parking structure in California, at 1.8 million square feet.
Clark Pacific has also provided stadium precast components for the San Jose Sharks “Shark Tank,” San Jose State Spartan Stadium, Indian Well’s Garden of Champions Tennis Stadium and track and soccer venues for Stanford University, including Angell Field.
