Here’s what’s going on under the roof at the Delta Center

Smith Entertainment Group has periodically posted videos of the Delta Center renovation on social media.

On Tuesday, the owners of the Utah Jazz and Utah Mammoth gave the Deseret News a glimpse inside the nearly bare arena as hundreds of construction workers push to have the lower bowl ready for the first home preseason hockey game Oct. 2.

And that’s only the first phase.

When all three phases are complete in 2027, the seating capacity for hockey will increase from 11,131 (plus 4,889 obstructed-view seats) to approximately 17,000. Basketball capacity will jump from 18,206 to nearly 19,000.

What the Delta Center looks like inside

Instead of cheers, the sounds of construction work fill the building. Towers of boxes with materials sit on the concourse. Plastic partitions section off various work areas. New restrooms and suites contain only unpainted dry wall.

The arena floor is a concrete slab more suitable for roller hockey than ice hockey. Each seat in the middle of the lower bowl is shrouded in plastic, while there are no seats on the ends. Michigan-based StageRight is nearly finished installing innovative retractable risers that can sit at one height and length for basketball and another for hockey.

“All we’re focusing on right now as far as the arena goes is the lower bowl,” said Harmon Tobler, project director for Okland Construction, the project’s general contractor.

At the same time, workers are doing things like adding structural beams to have them in place for future phases as well as bringing all areas of the building up to seismic code.

“We tried to do as much as we could this year but the design is still in progress for the upper bowl,” he said.

Who’s on the job site?

Okland has lined up 33 trade partners — they’re not called subcontractors anymore — with expertise and experience in various areas of construction to work on the renovations. Those trade partners, he said, have to use their knowledge to maintain progress.

Tobler said it takes a unique set of skills to pull off a project of this magnitude.

“These types of remodels, they’re tricky. It’s easy to define what you can see but when you start exposing things and you move things along, you need that expertise and that flexibility with contractors that don’t have to be spoon fed,” he said. “We don’t have time to sort out and wait and have every little thing answered for us.”

On any given day, 200-300 workers in two shifts are in the Delta Center from 6 a.m. to midnight. About 70% of the labor force is local and will put in about 3.5 million labor hours, according to SEG. In all, the project will employ 500 people each summer and more than 1,500 over the course of the reconstruction.

“They’re spread out all over the arena,” Tobler said.

Here’s what workers are doing

• Metal workers are installing 300 tons of structural steel, equal to the weight of about 43 mammoths.
• Plumbers are laying 10 miles of piping, nearly twice the height of Mount Everest.
• Painters are applying over 10,000 gallons of paint in a dozen different colors, enough to cover the Utah Jazz court approximately 745 times.
• Demolition crews removed around 5 million pounds of concrete to make way for a new steel system, equivalent to 715 Zambonis.

Tobler, who worked on the Delta Center’s major remodel in 2017, said he’s not aware of any sports arena in the country undergoing renovation from a single-sport to a dual-sport venue.

“Adding an ice rink inside an existing basketball arena is an unthinkable feat given that an ice rink is nearly double the size of a basketball court. We are excited for the challenge as we kick off this never-before-done renovation project,” Ryan and Ashley Smith, co-founders of SEG and owners of Delta Center, told NHL.com in April as the remodel started.

“By taking such significant steps to transform Delta Center into a world-class facility for both professional basketball and hockey, the Jazz and Utah’s NHL team will become anchors of downtown Salt Lake City for decades to come.”