The park and roof were rigorously tested, though uncertainty remains.
By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published September 11, 2004
If a major hurricane hit Pinellas County, how would a certain domed major-league stadium in St. Petersburg hold up?
Several officials associated with the design and construction of Tropicana Field expressed confidence the structure, including the teflon-coated fabric roof, would fare well in a powerful hurricane.
But the truth is, with a storm as strong as Ivan, nobody really knows for sure.
"I feel good about it," said Joe Zeoli, St. Petersburg's managing director for city development, who is intimately acquainted with the dome.
Zeoli was part of the project management team in 1987 for the construction of the building, known initially as the Florida Suncoast Dome. He served as project manager during the facility's renovation in 1996 and works in the department that oversees the relationship with the dome's tenants, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
"We have done, as part of the original construction and the renovation project, testing for wind loads and internal pressures," he said. "We've put it through the model-type testing and it's passed all of those."
In fact, Zeoli said, the city feels confident enough in the structure of the building to use it as an emergency shelter for critical city employees.
"Obviously, we haven't had it tested with any strong winds coming through the area, but so far it's done everything we've asked it to do. It's annually inspected, both the cable support system and the fabric. And it's in really, really good shape."
Still, Ivan has fluctuated between a Category 4 (131-155 mph) and Category 5 hurricane (greater than 155). So this could be uncharted territory.
"I inherited the roof when I came over (in 1997) and was told it was wind tested up to 120 mph," said Rick Nafe, Tropicana Field's vice president of operations/facilities.
What's going through his head this week?
"I worry about it," he said. "I worry about my roof at home and I worry about this roof here. It's a real concern."
To Nafe, there aren't any reference points to suggest how the dome would fare. "Nobody I know of," he said, "has put a roof this size through a major storm."
The cable-dome concept, using a "membrane" roof covering, was developed by David Geiger in 1984. His New York company Geiger Engineers was involved in the construction of the dome.
"We performed all the wind tunnel tests on the structure to analyze it," said David Chen, a Geiger principle who helped design the Trop. "I believe it would hold up well. In my mind, I have no doubt. I know the facility has been maintained very well, and that's important."
Chen said that the fabric in the roof is not likely to tear "unless it is hit by a very sharp object" and that the cable system is strong enough to survive heavy wind.
Is any aspect of the dome most susceptible to damage?
"I don't think there's any one aspect of the building, other than the glass, and again, the testing was done to see what would happen if we had failure of pieces of the glass system," Zeoli said. "That was looked at, and there are compensating features in the building that will mitigate any of those type of failures. Again, it's a well-engineered building and the safeguards are there."
