COLUMBUS, Ohio — Less than 48 hours before Tim McGraw and Faith Hill opened Nationwide Arena on Sept. 9, 2000, a soundcheck was being conducted by men who didn’t know a mixing console from an amplifier.

On the virgin ice surface, a morning skate was underway that didn’t involve any Blue Jackets, but men with no hockey experience or blades on their feet.

“I don’t even know if I’m supposed to say this, but we just partied,” said Jeff Asman, president of The Painting Company and one of the hundreds of workers who helped build Nationwide Arena. “We got some beer. I went out to my vehicle and grabbed some CDs and just cranked the music while some of the guys just slid across the ice.”

In the wee hours of Sept. 8, after the last bolt had been tightened and final coat of paint applied, project manager Jeff Beitel brought nearly two years of endless labor to a halt. It had been Beitel’s task to coordinate the schedules of 50 to 60 subcontractors to ensure they delivered a finished product on time.

The 18,144-seat building, with its stunning brick and glass facade, was complete. In the years to come, it would anchor a district that drew suburbanites back downtown and brought captains of sports industry from across the nation to learn how Nationwide Realty Investors had managed such a triumph of urban renewal.

But no such thoughts crossed the minds of Beitel and his 15 to 20 workers who were still in the building at 1:30 a.m. Hours before city and state leaders would speak to the public and media, Beitel just wanted his men to celebrate.

Asman played the role of Andy Dufresne, the prisoner who breaks into the Shawshank office to commandeer the public address system and release the sound of sweet music to the masses. Down below, at event level, the workers frolicked on the ice, intoxicated not as much by the alcohol but the tremendous sense of accomplishment.

Some stadiums age faster than sitting presidents. Twenty years after ground was broken in 1998, Nationwide Arena remains one of the NHL’s best-preserved venues. Built at the cost of $175 million, it serves as a monument to good planning and craftsmanship.

“We were like the perfect team, like the ’85 Chicago Bears,” said Charlie Steitz, whose Sauer Group Inc. installed the ventilation, heating, cooling and plumbing. “Every person was the perfect person for their job.”

The party broke up just before 5 a.m. The bleary-eyed Beitel and others went to breakfast at Tee Jaye’s and a few returned to the arena for the morning dedication. Later that evening, workers were encouraged to bring their families for a free tour of a place that had become like a second home.

Before the McGraw and Hill concert; before the chaos of the Doug MacLean era; before the arrival of NCAA Tournament basketball games and UFC cards; before Mick Jagger sang of getting no satisfaction and before Nick Foligno supplied it with a Blue Jackets playoff overtime-winning goal, the men and women who built Nationwide Arena had one last communion with it.

“It’s funny but you build these buildings and you can go anywhere any time,” Steitz said. “You own the building for two years. Then, all of a sudden, one day they put new locks on the doors and you are not allowed to go anywhere anymore. It’s a weird feeling. I walk around the arena now and I know what’s behind so many doors but I don’t have access to them.”

This is the story of the people who unlocked those doors and opened up the prosperous Columbus district, one that attracts an estimated 6 million visitors annually. It’s the story of the labor they put into a project and the rewards they got out of it — some of which they literally took to their graves.

Robert Woodward, Dimon McFerson and Brian Ellis were instrumental figures in developing the Arena District. (Courtesy of Nationwide Realty Investors)

The facilitator

Dimon McFerson, the former CEO of Nationwide Insurance, woke to headlines of stinging defeat on the morning of May 7, 1997:

“ ‘No’ to arena tax; Issue 1 falls hard, 56%-44%” read The Columbus Dispatch.

Below the fold, another headline stated: “NHL hockey franchise dead …”

For the fifth time in two decades, Franklin County voters had rejected an arena tax issue. The latest proposal, a three-year, 0.5 sales tax, would have helped finance a downtown arena and soccer stadium on the site of the old Ohio Penitentiary.

What made the setback more crushing was the NHL’s plan to add four clubs that would have included Columbus if voters had approved a publicly funded venue.

Just weeks before the league’s expansion committee was to make its final recommendations, the city had no arena and the team’s potential lead investor, Lamar Hunt, was in concession mode.

“This will make it impossible for the National Hockey League to come to Columbus,” Hunt, who owned the city’s MLS team, told The Dispatch. “I’ll say again, we were at the 99.9 percent level as far as certainty of getting a franchise if the issue had passed.”

The MLS was in its infancy with no assurance of survival. Despite its growing population and affluence, it appeared Columbus would not shake its “cow town” reputation. The city’s biggest sports rivals would continue to reside in small towns such as Ann Arbor, Michigan, and West Lafayette, Indiana.

“Arena vote confirms (Ohio State’s) status as king,” boasted a Dispatch column headline May 8.

McFerson wanted one more shot at salvaging the Arena District project. Without any timeouts, he was about to lead the greatest two-minute drive in Columbus sports history.

“It was one of the most fun and foundational days in my life,” McFerson said of the morning after Issue 1’s defeat. “Our offices were on the 36th and 37th floors of the Nationwide building. I was talking with our chief investment officer, Bob Woodward, and we were commiserating and saying how wonderful it would have been for this side of town. It would have taken a blighted area that needed redeveloping and done something spectacular with it.

“I said, ‘Woody, we need to find a way to do something ourselves.’ ”

Two years ago, Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella famously described Zach Werenski’s decision to return to a playoff game despite a facial fracture as having “balls the size of the building.”

Tortorella would have loved the buccaneering McFerson.

The CEO convinced his Nationwide board to privately finance the arena, provided an ownership group for the hockey team was willing to pay an $80 million expansion fee and agree to the terms of the lease.

“Frankly, it took a lot of guts to make the proposal that he made on a conference call to our board,” said Brian Ellis, president and COO of Nationwide Realty Investors. “I don’t know if I have ever seen a gutsier move by a CEO.”

The 120-year-old Ohio Penitentiary was closed in 1984, but some had hoped to preserve a section of the building. (Courtesy of Columbus Landmarks)

The arena site had a bizarre and controversial history. The abandoned and fire-damaged penitentiary, which closed in 1984, had become an eyesore. But a group of preservationists had hoped to keep the southern portion of the complex, with its striking Gothic facade, standing. Some marched in protest. “Save the Pen” T-shirts were created.

Others could not wait to demolish the prison. On Aug. 1, 1990, former mayor Buck Rinehart took controls of a wrecking ball with the intent of flattening part of the 120-year-old penitentiary.

“I’m going to go punch a hole in that place,” Rinehart was quoted as saying in The Dispatch. The mayor’s staff frantically tried reasoning with him, noting the city didn’t have legal title to the property. The mayor responded: “It’s in the middle of our town. That’s good enough for me. I’ll declare martial law.”

By 1997, the prison was gone and the site cleared, but a push for a downtown arena had gained little traction. Ohio State University was in the process of building the Schottenstein Center, home to Buckeyes sporting events and major concerts, and the school’s leadership didn’t see a need for a second new arena in Columbus.

McFerson was running out of time. The NHL had set a June 4, 1997, deadline.

Just as the Nationwide CEO thought he had his ownership coalition in place, Hunt expressed serious reservations. His group balked at the 25-year lease proposal, according to court documents, arguing the expansion club would lose millions because of it.

McFerson found himself almost out of options by the morning of May 30. He turned to a self-made billionaire, a man who grew up in a rural West Virginia home without electricity or indoor plumbing. A man who secured a $600 loan for a single load of steel in 1955 using his ’52 Oldsmobile as collateral.

From humble origins, John H. McConnell, founder of Worthington Industries, built an empire during the next half-century that employed 8,000 workers in 69 locations with about $3 billion in annual sales. McConnell also had agreed to take a small stake in the hockey team if Issue 1 passed.

“I knew John had planned to be a (minority) partner,” McFerson said. “I just called the family and said I would like to come up and talk to you guys and tell you where we are.”

McConnell agreed to a meeting that afternoon. McFerson hopped into his car and readied his pitch. He knew the terms of the lease would be a tough sell even to a man with deep pockets and a philanthropic heart.

But McConnell was willing to take one for the team and his city. How many chances do you get to bring a major-league product to your adopted hometown?

“Mr. Mac looks at me and says, ‘This is important to the city,’ ” McFerson recalled. “He said, ‘if Lamar won’t do it, I’ll do it.’ Those were his exact words. I stood up and said, ‘Are you serious, John?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely. I’ll take what Lamar was going to take.’ That was it. We just shook hands.”

John P. McConnell, the son of the steel magnate, confirmed the framework for an agreement was brokered in one afternoon. McConnell agreed to pay $80 million to become majority owner.

McFerson took his last-second deal to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on June 2. The league announced on June 17 that Columbus, Atlanta, Nashville and St. Paul, Minnesota, had been tentatively awarded expansion franchises.

The team would begin to play in the 2000-01 season.

“Dimon was adamant about finding a way to move this forward,” said John P. McConnell, who became the Blue Jackets majority owner after his father died at age 84 in 2008. “We were impressed that he took it on so quickly …

“There was urgency around this because the NHL needed to have an answer for their 2000 expansion teams. So there was the phone call and then the meeting and Dad agreed to buy the team. It was a pretty big day and amazing when you think of the timeline.”

Now, McFerson needed to find someone to build him an arena — one with a view of the city.

The visionary

Brian Ellis spent the summer of 1997 traveling across the nation, searching for ideas inside of NHL, NBA and multipurpose venues.

He found his greatest inspiration, however, in baseball parks.

Visits to Cleveland’s then-Jacobs Field and Baltimore’s Camden Yards spoke to him more than any tours of hockey and basketball facilities. Such is the essence of Ellis, an unconventional and uncompromising developer.

He was 35 years old when Nationwide handed him the biggest assignment of his career. While he had worked on big projects in the past, Ellis had no experience with stadiums or arenas.

But a lack of expertise and a tight deadline did not force him into rash decisions or staid building designs.

“What we loved about those baseball stadiums is the way they spilled out from the (lower) bowl into the concourses,” Ellis said. “So they open up and create an experience before you get through the vomitory.”

Picture yourself walking into the left-field entrance at Progressive Field and being immediately greeted by the sight of the diamond. Now, envision your arrival at a Blue Jackets game through the Front Street entrance and seeing the lower bowl.

“This was one of the first arenas to crack the bowl open,” said HOK architect Christopher King, who worked on the arena project with another firm, NBBJ. “It connects the inside and the outside of the building. It connects what’s going on inside the building with what’s going on in the street and that hadn’t been done before.”

Nationwide Arena offers fans many views of the lower bowl and the ice from the main concourse. It was one of the first arenas to offer such views. (Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)

Nationwide Arena also became one of the first venues to offer a variety of wrinkles in terms of seating, particularly at the club levels. It introduced terrace tables and a “party tower” for large groups. The structural framing of the tower reduced the roof span at one end of the building.

The arena also became the first in the NHL to include a practice rink — the brainchild of John P. McConnell, according to Ellis.

“That was a really smart idea,” King said. “Lots of teams have practice facilities in the suburbs or miles away. This was considered a major competitive advantage. Players didn’t have to travel all over the city. They were using only one locker room for practices and game days.”

Ellis honored McFerson’s lone request. The Nationwide Boulevard side of the venue is covered in glass, offering fans a window to the city. There are 60,000 square feet of glass in the arena, and King believes few, if any, stadiums of that era could match the total.

“We wanted to leave as little to the imagination as possible,” Ellis said. “It was all about making a great first impression.”

Ellis began looking for an arena architect in the fall of 1997. He met with all the big names in the field but was turned off by hearing their vision for Columbus. The Nationwide contingent wanted someone willing to work with its ideas.

Ellis chose a smaller firm, Heinlein Schrock Sterns, based in Kansas City, and he partnered it with NBBJ. For a businessman keen on initial impressions, Ellis was willing to overlook an awkward first encounter.

“The Heinlein Schrock Sterns office was in a redeveloped area,” he recalled. “We walked in and there’s nobody greeting us. There is no receptionist. We are walking in and literally trying to find these guys. It was like, ‘We’re here from Nationwide for the interview’ and this guy we run into says, ‘Oh, let me find George (Heinlein).’ These guys weren’t ready for us. We ended up getting our own coffee.”

Once the meeting began, however, Ellis loved what he heard. He wasn’t just building a 685,000-square-foot arena, but also developing a district with bars, restaurants, entertainment venues, office space, parking garages, hotels, condos and apartments.

There’s been more than $1 billion in investment into the district in the past two decades.

The Arena District has seen more than $1 billion in investments in the past two decades. (Screenshot courtesy of Nationwide Realty Investors)

Ellis was fanatical about ingress and egress — the flow of people and traffic. He knew the Blue Jackets probably would lose their share of games in the early seasons and the last thing he wanted was angry fans waiting 35 minutes to get out of a parking garage and onto a highway after a 5-0 thumping at the hands of the Predators.

“There was lots of thought into where people were going to park and where they were going to enter the arena,” King said. “There were very detailed analyses of traffic movement. Brian wanted to know how long it would take to dump a garage.”

Ellis loved creative tension as a means of drawing out the best in his designers. He constantly questioned ideas and didn’t mind having architects rip up plans and start over.

The red brick-clad district is filled with little secrets and symbolism. It is Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” come to life.

Arena District designers incorporated remnants of the old prison in the project. These cell doors hang on the Moline Plow Building. (Tom Reed / The Athletic)

Ellis made visitors walk downstairs into Buca di Beppo because the restaurant’s name in Italian roughly translates to “Joe’s basement.”

Throughout the district, visitors can find remnants of the old penitentiary. Two cell doors hang on the west side of the Moline Plow Building. Prison stones are used in the low walls of North Bank Park and a structure in Daniel Burnham Square.

The trestle in Ludlow Alley, which carries thirsty patrons from the arena to the R Bar, was not specially designed for the district. Workers found it abandoned in a field and decided to incorporate it.

“Brian believed there was never a bad time to make a good decision,” King said. “They knew where every dollar made the most impact. They challenged every decision we made and usually for the better. Brian made me a better architect.”

Not bad for a guy who had never built an arena.

Keith Myers made significant contributions to the Arena District project. One of the most audacious was his desire to move the Union Station arch to its current location. (Tom Reed / The Athletic)

The arch mover

In the spring of 1999, Keith Myers woke one day to the sight of his career flashing before his eyes.

Amid all the bold planning that went into the Arena District, perhaps nothing was as audacious as the architect’s desire to move the Union Station arch more than 2,000 feet to the head of McFerson Commons.

Myers understood the massive risks involved and needed the blessing of the mayor’s office before the project could be greenlighted. Any mistake or damage to the 489-ton terra-cotta tile and concrete structure could sink his small firm.

He felt good that International Chimney, the company that relocated the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, had won the bid for the job. What Myers didn’t know is International Chimney had opted to subcontract the work.

“I go out there looking for International Chimney and I see this trailer — and I can’t make this up — that says, ‘Dingey Movers from Zanesville,’ ” Myers recalled. “I am like ‘holy shit, Dingey Movers.’ I’m expecting guys in white coats and calculators, engineers everywhere, and I’ve got Bill Dingey in bib overalls.”

There’s an entire generation of central Ohio residents who have only seen the arch in its current home across from the arena on Nationwide Boulevard. Designed by the legendary Daniel H. Burnham in the beaux-arts classicism style, the arch is a popular backdrop for wedding photos and modeling shoots.

Fans on their way to the arena, Huntington Park and Express Live can stop and read about the history of the monument. They can learn it was part of the North High Street arcade that formed a grand entrance to Union Station. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson delivered his first speech on the Treaty of Versailles after World War I in front of the arcade. Visitors also can discover how the arch was saved from the wrecking ball by a federal judge’s court order in 1976 after the demolition of Union Station had begun. They can read how the salvaging of the arch and its move to Hickory Street spurred the birth of the city’s historical preservation movement.

What’s not on the placards is the colorful tales and the sleepless nights surrounding the arch’s second move across two sets of railroad tracks on the back of 12 dollies.

Dingey Movers of Zanesville was in charge of relocating the 489-ton city landmark in 1999. (Courtesy of Keith Myers)

“That thing wasn’t strapped in, the weight of it just sat there,” said Bart Dingey, the son of Bill. “If a hydraulic line had snapped, that thing was coming down in front of all those television cameras. The stress was overwhelming.”

And to think Myers had begged Ellis to be part of the Arena District project.

“Keith wanted to meet with me,” Ellis said. “I didn’t know him that well. He came into my office and said, ‘I need you to know how important this is for me. This is going to be the most significant thing someone in my position could ever do in his hometown. And you have to let me do it. I’ll do it for free if I have to. You cannot give this to anybody else.’ ”

Ellis named Myers the master-plan architect and paired him with a more seasoned designer. Myers had sketched out his vision for the district, but on the day of a crucial meeting with Ellis and other project executives, he allowed the more experienced architect to show his rendering.

The group did not like what they saw. Sensing his big chance slipping away, Myers reached into his briefcase and pulled out his plan, which included a park across from the arena. They loved it.

Twenty years later, as the 62-year-old Myers sat at a conference table — he’s now Ohio State’s vice president of planning and real estate — he began to cry while recalling the meeting.

“I took that drawing and put it in a frame and gave it to Brian on the night the arena opened,” Myers said.

His original plan did not have a showcase piece at the head of the park. Myers didn’t want to erect a fountain or statue. He wanted “something heroic.” He was dreaming big — 489 tons of big. Every day on his way to work, Myers drove past the arch. He envisioned yoking the city’s past and its future.

What he didn’t realize is the arch could no longer be disassembled. When it was moved the first time from North High to Hickory Street, workers had filled it with mortar never considering someone might want to relocate it.

Myers and his consultant Bob Loversidge decided the risk was worth the reward. They marveled at the sight of the Dingey boys digging beneath the arch’s foundation.

“I remember telling one of them, ‘that takes a lot of courage to be working under there, you could be crushed,’ ” Myers said. “The kid looked at me and said, ‘Nah, working for my dad is a lot scarier.’ ”

Bill Dingey was known for his gruff facade. When a member of a local preservation society, interested in uprooting his house, asked for references, Bill Dingey replied:

“Don’t need references. You drop a house (and) word gets around.”

After weeks of prep work, the arch was loaded on the dollies. The 2,000-foot trek took the moving company two days to complete. They had to pay the railroad $10,000 to reroute train traffic, disconnect overhead power lines and build a ramp over the tracks.

A host of media members and curiosity seekers assembled to witness the engineering feat. Bart Dingey remembered seeing spectators standing on rooftops with cameras.

Myers brought his family to the site and watched a few hours of work before taking his kids to Cincinnati for the weekend. He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the top-heavy arch crumble to the ground.

The architect returned to his office Monday and found a note from his project manager on his desk.

“It read, ‘good news and bad news on the arch,’ ” he recalled. “‘The bad news is it’s not parallel to Nationwide Boulevard. I thought, ‘well, shit, we’ll figure that out.’ I flipped the note over and it says, ‘He missed by an inch and a half.’

“Bill Dingey was incredible. He jacked it up, rolled it over railroad tracks, moved it 2,000 feet and put it down and missed by an inch and a half. Smartest son of a bitch I’ve met in my life.”

Jeff Beitel served as the arena’s project manager for Turner Construction. His wife, Diane, said despite 12-hour days over two years, Jeff almost never missed family functions, which included coaching their daughters’ basketball teams. (Courtesy of the Beitel family)

The conductor

In the final days before the arena opened, Jeff Beitel excitedly phoned his wife with a bizarre request.

The Turner Construction project manager asked her to look out the front window of their home to see if she could see a beam of light in the night sky. They were testing the spotlight on the top of the arena’s AEP Tower, which shines during Blue Jackets game nights.

“I told him, ‘No, I can’t see it, but we live in Powell,’ ” Diane Beitel said of the suburb, which is a 20-minute drive from downtown.

Beitel thought anything was possible with enough hard work and planning. It was an attitude that made him a perfect choice for a difficult task.

The Ohio State graduate worked at Turner for 27 years and mastered many tough assignments. A big personality with a competitive streak that runs longer than the Scioto River, he liked to say he was “undefeated” in the face of project deadlines.

This one, however, came with a huge penalty if he fell from the ranks of the unbeaten. The NHL was prepared to assess a $10 million fine if the arena wasn’t ready for the start of the 2000-01 season.

Myers and others had heard Ohio State administrators expected that the arena would never be done on time and that the Blue Jackets would have to play at least a few games at the Schottenstein Center.

Beitel proved them wrong.

“This is my crown jewel job,” he loved telling people.

Beitel worked 12-hour days but never neglected his family during the two years of arena construction. He coached youth basketball for his three daughters and almost never missed a game during the project.

Steitz said Beitel possessed a rare gift for someone in his position of prominence. He could be both demanding of his workers and understanding of their plights. Every day, he met with subcontractors and mapped out strategies so they could work effectively and efficiently in different parts of the arena.

There were welders, electricians, painters, plumbers, surveyors, bricklayers, glass makers, maintenance crews. So many moving parts to track.

“The management by Turner was extraordinary,” said Alex Johnson of the Ardit Company, which installed the terrazzo flooring throughout the concourses. “Jeff was one of the good guys. There was a tremendous amount of coordination going on there. From day one, we were working overtime and he managed to keep all the schedules straight.”

Rick Lombardi, vice president and general manager of the local Turner Construction office, said not a single worker was killed or seriously injured on the project — the first in central Ohio to require mandatory drug testing.

Inside Beitel’s trailer hung a sign that read: “Is 99 percent good enough?” Steitz said it listed examples of what happens when people like heart surgeons and automakers “almost” get it right.

One deadline after another was met. When the arena’s skeleton was complete, many workers received commemorative pucks with the inscription: “Structural Steel Topping Out — Oct. 22, 1999.” Those pucks became treasured mementos for everyone on the project.

“Jeff was the driving force behind it,” Steitz said. “He came out of the field and he never lost touch with what it took to build things. He was the ultimate team player, the guy who understood everyone’s role. He was like a symphony conductor.”

Charlie Steitz loved to tease Jeff Beitel about a plot to bury a Pittsburgh Penguins card beneath Nationwide Arena. (Tom Reed / The Athletic)

Beitel was serious about his work, family, golf and poker. Those under his watch, however, could still joke with him.

Steitz is a Pittsburgh native and a lifelong Penguins fan. He loved to threaten Beitel with a plot to bury a 1972-73 Penguins trading card under the concrete slabs.

“A lot of project managers stay in the trailer and some of the workers have no idea who he is,” Steitz said. “Jeff had this amazing ability to be hands-on one minute and pull back and offer a 10,000-foot view the next.”

A day after the workers’ party on the ice, Beitel had 100 tickets to the first McGraw-Hill concert. He invited almost everyone he knew.

“We would go to Blue Jackets games and he would just look around the building with a smile, look around at the good time everyone else was having,” Diane said. “He was so proud of that building and the work that went into it.”

The surveyor and the survivor

Sandy Doyle-Ahern loved pro hockey long before her surveying and civil engineering company began work in the Arena District in the late 1990s. She learned the game at the knee of her father, Trevor Doyle, who took young Sandy to Flyers games when they lived in suburban Philadelphia.

While the president of EMH&T Engineers has become a diehard Blue Jackets fan, you don’t need to rummage too deep into her closet to find the Rick Tocchet No. 22 Flyers jersey she wore throughout high school.

“My father was a textile dyer and he bought chemicals and dyes from a gentleman who also worked as a penalty-time keeper at the old Spectrum,” Sandy said. “We hung out at an arena restaurant where the players would drop in and it gave me a chance to grow up around the Flyers in the 1980s.”

When Nationwide Realty Investors chose to build an arena, she was thrilled for the new fans who would get the opportunity to attend games and concerts, and enjoy the benefits of the surrounding district.

Sandy had no idea, however, she would have the chance to repay Trevor for introducing her to hockey and bringing her so close to the game.

Her elderly parents relocated to Columbus about six years ago to be near Sandy and her growing family. Not long after their move, Trevor was diagnosed with lung cancer.

“We almost lost him because he got pneumonia,” Sandy said fighting back tears.

Trevor, 80, fought through the adversity thanks to great medical care and the support of his wife, Sylvia, and Sandy’s family. The Columbus hockey community also provided a secondary assist. Longtime Blue Jackets broadcaster and cancer survivor Bill Davidge reached out to Trevor in an effort to buoy his spirits.

Davidge has watched Sandy and Trevor become involved in the charitable Blue Jackets Foundation and donate money to his fundraisers.

“They are good people,” Davidge said. “It goes beyond a love for hockey. They go that extra mile with the financial support.”

Attending Blue Jackets games with his daughter has helped Trevor in his recovery process. Among his favorite memories was a between-periods Zamboni ride that Sandy arranged.

“It’s been so gratifying for me,” Trevor said. “It’s not a religious experience, but in some ways, I feel born again. We go to games. We go to Blue Jackets functions. That kind of stuff would have never happened if we were still in Philadelphia,

“It’s beyond father-daughter now. It’s like we are friends of hockey.”

Sandy Doyle-Ahern was introduced to hockey by her father, Trevor, in Philadelphia. After Trevor moved to Columbus six years ago, his daughter turned him into a Blue Jackets fan. (Courtesy of the Doyle-Ahern family)

Sandy has been a season-ticket holder since the club’s inception. She has four tickets for family and two others that she raffles off to fellow EMH&T employees.

The family has watched the club grow through difficult and even tragic times. Sandy and her husband, Michael, were in the building March 16, 2002, when a deflected puck flew into the stands and struck a young fan, Brittanie Cecil, in the left temple. Brittanie died two days later at age 13. The incident led the NHL to require mandatory netting at both ends of rinks to protect fans seated in the end zones.

“I can’t imagine the unspeakable tragedy her family went through and it’s so sad for them and for the legacy of the arena,” said Sandy, who has two teenage daughters. “… I’m glad the reaction was to take care of reducing the fan risk, and if anyone ever complains that it makes it hard to see, it’s a pretty easy explanation why (the nets) are there.”

Sandy’s favorite player is Cam Atkinson — not only for his scoring ability but also his community outreach. Atkinson has played a major role for a franchise that’s qualified for the postseason in each of the past two years.

But Sandy’s favorite moment involves another player. She was at Nationwide Arena on April 23, 2014, as Foligno scored the overtime winner that knotted the Blue Jackets’ series against the Penguins at two games apiece.

Many interviewed for this story list Foligno’s goal as the arena’s greatest highlight.

“I was with my wife and 20,000 of our closest friends,” Brian Ellis recalled. “I can’t remember a more exciting feeling. It was our first home playoff win and nobody wanted to go home. I think we all ended up at the R Bar.”

Sandy and Trevor are hopeful even better nights lie ahead. Trevor, who emigrated from England to Canada in 1956, has quite the hockey history. He’s lived in Toronto, Montreal and Philadelphia at times when those cities won titles.

Imagine a Stanley Cup parade down Nationwide Boulevard.

Bill Dingey might have to reinforce the arch’s foundation.

Mark Greiner has worked at Nationwide Arena since it opened in 2000. He’s tasked with the building’s maintenance. (Tom Reed / The Athletic)

The fixer

Mark Greiner begins every workday walking through the entire facility listening for trouble.

Before the first player or coach enters Nationwide Arena, the 61-year-old assistant general manager of operations takes advantage of the morning’s stillness to hear whether the building is talking back to him.

Is that motor above the ceiling in the upper concourse making a funny sound? What’s that squeaky noise near the cooling units?

“I tell my doctor I get my 10,000 steps in and he says, ‘that’s good, Mark,’ and I say, ‘No, I get my 10,000 steps in by noon,’ ” Greiner said. “Since I have been here, I have had two knees and a hip replaced from all the walking and stairs. I hate stairs.”

Upon its completion, Nationwide Arena was lauded for its architectural design. In recent years, many of the compliments are reserved for its maintenance. It doesn’t look or feel like a stadium that’s 18 years old.

Hollywood starlets aren’t as well preserved or chemically enhanced as the arena. Greiner is the one in charge of the Botox.

Among his crew of 11 workers, two men are assigned to paint every day. That’s right, every day. The minute Greiner spots a chip in a wall or scuff mark, he grabs his walkie-talkie and notifies a painter of his location.

People around the NHL have taken note.

“What’s impressed me about Nationwide is how modern it’s looked from day one,” said Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock, who spent parts of four seasons with the Blue Jackets.

Greiner was hired by former team president Doug MacLean not long after the building opened in 2000.

His crew’s responsibilities used to include arena changeover — the transformation of the event floor from a concert setting or a basketball court to a hockey rink. In those days, Greiner prayed the Blue Jackets did not get an unfavorable carom off the glass or boards in the first game after a changeover.

“Oh, you would hear about it from Doug if there was a bad bounce,” Greiner said. “But the thing about him is he always apologized.”

Greiner grew up playing hockey. So have his kids. He loves the sport and those who are a part of it.

Last spring, former Blue Jackets coach Gerard Gallant invited Greiner to Las Vegas to attend a Stanley Cup Final game. Gallant’s expansion Golden Knights reached the championship round, and he wanted his buddy — the two families became close during the coach’s time in Columbus — to experience the atmosphere.

Greiner has been to games in other NHL markets, but he rarely finds himself watching the action on the ice. He’s too busy looking for potential maintenance issues.

Brian Johnson, who’s worked in the arena for 18 years, is a floor technician. He operates three floor scrubbers. (Tom Reed / The Athletic)

The operations manager isn’t the only one who takes pride in Nationwide’s appearance.

“I’m trying to go full-go every day,” said Brian Johnson, a floor technician who works under another maintenance supervisor. “Hard work is a good habit.”

Johnson operates floor scrubbers that look like mini-Zambonis. Hardly a day passes when you can’t find workers in the concourses tending to some project.

Not that there isn’t room for improvement.

The arena received an unfavorable review in a recent ESPN report that rated all 111 North American pro stadiums on food-safety inspections at concession stands. Nationwide had the third-worst mark among NHL arenas.

Those responsibilities, however, do not fall under Greiner’s watch. His job is to keep mechanical operations humming.

Columbus City Council recently approved a 5 percent ticket tax on local sporting and entertainment events that will generate an estimated $2.4 million for arena repairs. (Ohio State sporting events are not subjected.) Blue Jackets president Mike Priest supported the measure for Nationwide Arena tickets because the money would go toward capital expenses needed at the venue.

Arenas are like homes. There’s always something that requires fixing. Greiner’s biggest fear is freezing pipes during the cold-weather months. And so he keeps his eyes and ears open for the first signs of problems.

“I know more about doors than I ever thought I’d have to know,” Greiner said.

“(Former team executive) Jim Clark and (former assistants) Rick Wamsley and Gord Murphy will come into town and say how good the building looks. They say it still looks the way it did in the first five years.”

Of course, there are a lot of new parts since 2000. Just ask Greiner’s orthopedic surgeon.

HOK architect Christopher King is one of many who worked on the Nationwide Arena project to keep the commemorative pucks given out by Turner Construction. (Tom Reed / The Athletic)

The credits

A few months ago, Dimon McFerson returned to Columbus for the first time in three years. He retired from Nationwide not long after the arena opened. The 81-year-old Mormon lives in St. George, Utah, surrounded by children and grandkids.

McFerson attended an Ohio State football game before taking a carload of friends to the Arena District. He showed them the home of the Blue Jackets, the baseball stadium and the commons that bear his name. He couldn’t help but smile.

“It got developed just the way we thought it would with five- and six-story brick buildings with a traditional look that will last forever,” McFerson said. “I think we moved the center of town four blocks north for a couple of decades.”

Not everything went according to plan, however.

Lamar Hunt, who died in 2006, was right. The 25-year arena lease became a financial burden to ownership and the franchise. And, eventually taxpayers. The Blue Jackets couldn’t draw on traditional revenue streams such as parking and arena naming rights, which were owned by Nationwide. The team’s chronic losing over the first decade drove down attendance and, unlike other major sports leagues, the NHL has no lucrative American television contracts to help prop up needy teams.

Club officials acknowledged losing $80 million over a seven-year stretch in 2009. Three years later, the arena transitioned from private to public ownership as the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority bought it and agreed to allow the Blue Jackets to remain rent-free in exchange for the promise of staying through 2039.

The cautionary tale has not stopped other cities from visiting the Arena District to gain insight into developing their own projects. Officials from Detroit, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Sacramento to name a few have toured the area.

“That is the ultimate compliment: We love what you have done here and how can we do it in our city?” Ellis said. “My answer is there’s no magic formula. It’s specific to every market and it’s hard to replicate it.”

Among the great ironies is that two decades after voters rejected plans for a downtown arena and soccer stadium, it appears Columbus will have both. New Crew SC ownership is expected to move the club into a $230 million soccer stadium as part of a public-private venture. It will anchor a new “Confluence Village” that’s adjacent to the Arena District.

Alex Johnson, who helped lay the terrazzo in Nationwide Arena, is amazed at how the area has grown up around the arena. One of the evergreen perks, he said, is when his involvement in the project comes up in casual conversation.

“It’s an extraordinary accomplishment for the community,” he said. “It’s allowed the city to grow beyond the image that it was a cow town.

“When you get the opportunity to say, ‘I had a little part in that,’ you pick your shoulders up a little bit. You push your chest out a little more.”

Nationwide Arena features a wall that includes almost all the names of those who aided in construction. (Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)

The names of almost every worker who had a hand in the arena’s construction appear on a giant wall display that hangs in the main concourse near the Front Street entrance.

“It’s one of the sharper-looking buildings in the league,” Blue Jackets center Brandon Dubinsky said. “You see some of these places and they are ugly and gray and spacey-looking kind of buildings. Having been here as a fan for concerts, they have done a great job with the setup and the seating and the amenities that went with it.”

Nationwide Arena opened in 2000. It’s played host to the 2007 NHL Draft and 2015 All-Star Game. (Getty Images)

Jeff Beitel, a big Blue Jackets fan, didn’t live long enough to see his club’s rise to respectability and perennial playoff contention.

In the summer of 2008, he was suffering debilitating headaches on a family vacation in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Weeks later, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

Beitel, who became a vice president at Turner, worked until a month before he died on Aug. 17, 2009. He was 50.

He is survived by his wife and their three daughters: Shannon, Brittany and Stephanie.

Diane no longer attends Blue Jackets games, but in the couple’s bedroom, she keeps an 11-by-18 picture of her husband and other Turner employees standing in a semicircle at center ice.

“After the Nationwide job, he was given the chance to work on the renovation of the Horseshoe,” Diane said. “He was an Ohio State grad and he loved Buckeyes football. It was a big assignment. But nothing in terms of work ever meant more than being a part of building Nationwide Arena.

On Aug. 20, 2009, hundreds of mourners gathered at Rodman Neeper Funeral Home. They expressed condolences and shared their favorite Jeff Beitel stories. They talked about the party on the night before the arena opened.

As the crowd inside the parlor thinned, Charlie Steitz made a request to Diane. Steitz and Beitel had been good friends. He was the one who teased Beitel about burying the Penguins card in the arena.

Steitz reached into his pocket and grabbed one of the commemorative pucks given to so many Nationwide Arena workers.

He placed it inside the casket.

(Top photo courtesy of Nationwide Realty Investors)

UPDATE: This story was updated after publication to reflect it is Dimon McFerson. An earlier version was not correct.