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Sound you hear is a wall going up

Work begins on the Ford Amphitheatre noise barrier. Some are skeptical noise will be reduced.

By MICHAEL A. MOHAMMED
Published September 24, 2006

After nearly two years of neighbor complaints, litigation and construction delays, the Ford Amphitheatre has started work on a 74-foot-high sound barrier.

Since it opened in July 2004, the 20,000-seat concert venue has drawn hundreds of noise complaints from residents as far away as 4 miles. Amphitheater officials hope that once the $2.5-million wall is finished by year’s end, concert noise will fall within county regulations.

“I can’t speak … in percentages, but the scientific modeling shows that it will bring us within compliance,” said amphitheater executive director Ed Morrell.

Live Nation agreed to build the wall as part of a November 2005 settlement of a lawsuit the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission brought against Clear Channel, Live Nation’s parent company, in 2004. The initial deadline to complete the wall was Sept. 30, barring any “delays beyond the direct control” of the company.

This spring, unstable soil required engineers to partially redesign the wall. Then a national steel shortage made it difficult getting the 400 tons of steel needed for the project.

Now that the wall is finally under way, many residents hope their neighborhoods will get quieter. However, some are skeptical the wall will solve the problem.

“What’s going to happen when the wall is built?” asked Edward Schroering, who has actively protested the noise. “Are they going to go and start booking the loud concerts again?”

After the settlement was reached, Live Nation made some short-term changes to lower the noise, including adjusting the speakers, avoiding extra-loud acts and erecting a temporary sound wall. According to a report from Live Nation to the EPC, those changes lowered the average number of complaints from 12 for the 18 concerts held between July 2004 and April 2005, to two complaints for the first 18 concerts held in 2006.

Still, Shroering said, the changes haven’t been enough; he could hear the amphitheater’s Sept. 3 Earth, Wind and Fire show from his porch 3 miles away.

Shroering and other residents have expressed concern that Live Nation may use the wall as a “token” to seek a variance from the County Commission on the noise restrictions after the wall is built. Live Nation representatives have said they have no plans to do so.

The main challenge in designing the wall was stopping the lower-frequency bass sound, Morrell said. To deal with it, the designers incorporated a “bass trap,” a hollowed-out space in the wall filled with sound-absorbing material and membranes similar to drum skins. When low-frequency waves hit the membranes, they vibrate and dissipate into the absorbent material.

The wall won’t be “monolithic (like) the ones along the highway,” Morrell said. “It looks somewhat like an orchestra shell.”

To accommodate the loose soil, builders had to switch from a pylon-type anchoring system to a “floating” foundation on a 30-inch concrete mat. In theory, this should allow different sections of the wall to sink into the ground at different rates.

Construction on the wall began Monday.  By Thursday crews had laid a small portion of the foundation and a metal skeleton for the next slab. The wall will rise just behind the audience area and tower above the roof. Morrell said that while the 100-foot-long wall encloses only a small portion of the amphitheater, it will catch most of the sound from the speakers.

EPC lawyer Rick Tschantz,  who helped broker the settlement with Live Nation, said he expected the company will complete the wall on time.

“It’s taken a long time to get to this point,” he said, but “the steel beams will go up a lot quicker once the foundation is down.”

Shroering, who has a 2-year-old child, stressed that the complaints aren’t simply the objections of crotchety fun haters.

“I’ve seen most of these acts, and I’d like to see them again. I’m not against rock ’n’ roll, and I don’t want the theater shut down,” he said.

“I just want my quiet neighborhood.”

Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mmohammed@ sptimes.com or (813) 226-3404.

[Last modified September 24, 2006, 00:20:11]