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Value engineering underway in Hartford

New Britain Rock Cats ballpark, Hartford

We have some design changes to Dunkin’ Donuts Park, set to open in 2016 as the new home of the Hartford Yard Goats (Class AA; Eastern League), as a result of $4 million in cost overruns on the $56-million project.

The value engineering manifests itself in a whole bunch of small changes to the ballpark’s design; it’s not as though some huge portion of the ballpark will be missing when it opens in April. The biggest change is the decision to not built a roof over the right-field seating (as shown in the above rendering), and that will save $305,000 in construction costs. Overall, 60 items are being eliminated.

The team will cover other parts of the overruns: for instance, automatic flush systems in restrooms will be funded by the Yard Goats. From the Hartford Courant:

Michael Looney, the city’s project manager on the stadium project, said the roof is not typical of most of the items on the list. The majority involve construction materials and mechanical systems, he said.

“The changes that you are seeing — like ductwork, plumbing and electrical — don’t have any direct impact with how fans experience the stadium,” Looney said.

For instance, changing a plumbing filtering system that deals with grease clogs from concession and other areas of the ballpark alone will save $112,000.

And the Yard Goats are paying extra to upgrade other parts of the ballpark: some of the steel beams are being upgraded to allow signage specified as part of the team’s naming-rights deal. That will cost $34,000.

RELATED STORIES: Hartford Yard Goats unveil logos, colors; A branding exercise: Hartford Yard Goats; New for 2016: Dunkin’ Donuts Park; After Rock Cats, what becomes of New Britain Stadium?; New for 2016: Hartford Yard Goats; Hartford ballpark construction begins; Hartford ballpark groundbreaking set for February; Hartford overhauls ballpark financing plan; Hartford approves Rock Cats ballpark project

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