Project Profiles: Sports

Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, N.Y.

Alucobond is chosen to create the fins for its light weight and flexibility.

Retrofit Team

Architect: SHoP Architects, New York
Developer: Forest City Ratner Cos. LLC, New York
General Contractor: Hunt Construction Group, Indianapolis
Fabricator: Sobotec Ltd., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
ACM Installer: Crown Corr Inc., Gary Ind.

Materials

The intricate metal design system wrapping the 416,000-square-foot coliseum consists of approximately 4,700 unique aluminum “fins” created with 225,000 square feet of recyclable 4-millimeter Alucobond PLUS aluminum composite material (ACM) in the naturAL Brushed finish.

Alucobond was chosen to create the fins for its light weight and flexibility, according to John Cerone, associate principal and director of virtual design and construction for SHoP Architects. “Each of these fins has six folds,” he says. “We knew this would be a complicated folding and routing process. We wanted clean lines and several fields of interest to look at as you walk closer to the individual fins. The Alucobond material expresses flexibility. It’s very easy to form into precise shapes.”

ACM Manufacturer: 3A Composites USA

The Retrofit

Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum presented by New York Community Bank was updated inside and out. It reopened in April 2017 after being closed slightly more than a year and a half for the $165 million renovation that was privately funded by Nassau Events Center LLC, a joint venture between Forest City Ratner Cos. LLC and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, both of New York.

The completed renovation has more than met Forest City Ratner’s goal “to transform a 45-year-old coliseum into a first-class destination for entertainment and sports and to serve the Long Island community,” according to Alexis Lenza, senior vice president, construction and design development, Forest City Ratner. “This building now is a piece of architecture and part of the community. This definitely was an iconic project. … It’s not often that you get to renovate an existing arena and wrap its exterior in an undulating metal design system—let alone one in which every single element is unique.”

Photos: Jamey Price Photography