Demolition of CSU's Hughes Stadium begins

A giant crane started taking chunks out of the large structure on the west side of CSU’s Hughes Stadium on Tuesday as significant demolition of the former home of the Rams’ football team began.

The crane, with a tooth-like attachment, peeled off the aluminum skin outside of the southwest staircase leading to the structure that housed luxury suites and the press box at the 51-year-old stadium, then ripped apart the upper levels of the staircase and the concrete tower alongside it.

Runners, cyclists and others passing by on trails in the city’s Maxwell Natural Area just west of the stadium stopped to snap photographs and take video as large pieces of steel and concrete came tumbling down.

Complete demolition of the west structure will take about three to four weeks, said an onsite manager from the Aurora office of Independence Excavating, the Cleveland-based contractor that won the $3.3 million bid for the deconstruction of the facility that sits just below Horsetooth Reservoir.

Q&A on Hughes Stadium deconstruction: https://bit.ly/2HpavIC

Cranes and bulldozers had previously cleared structures on the concourse underneath the west stands, separating the steel beams, metal trim, chunks of concrete and other materials into separate piles for recycling.

The deconstruction contract requires Independence Excavating to divert at least 70 percent of the stadium’s materials from the landfill. Connell Resources, a sub-contractor based in Fort Collins, will separate the rebar and grind up the concrete for re-use, said Fred Haberecht, a campus planner for Colorado State University.

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CSU is demolishing the stadium and restoring the bowl in which it sits to its original topography before selling the 161-acre site for development, CSU project manager Tony Flores said. The CSU Research Foundation is in charge of the sale and development of the land and is currently accepting proposals.

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The university spent a little more than $500,000 for mitigation of hazardous materials, primarily asbestos, before deconstruction began last week. The process is expected to last into December, with the stadium demolition completed by mid-summer and the filling of the stadium bowl with soil that was used to build berms surrounding it continuing through fall, Flores said.

The contractor will be allowed to store materials for possible recycling on the site through April.

Hughes Stadium, which had seating for 32,500 fans, served as the home of CSU's football team from 1968-2016. It was replaced by a new $220 million on-campus stadium, which saw its first games last season. The new stadium has seating for 36,500 fans and a total capacity of 41,000.

Although the Hughes site is fenced off and closed to the public, access to the Maxwell Natural Area and the city’s disc golf course southeast of the stadium will remain open during the deconstruction, Haberecht said.

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news and listen to him talk CSU sports at 11:35 a.m. Thursdays on KFKA radio (AM 1310) and 10:45 a.m. Saturdays on Denver’s ESPN radio (AM 1600).

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