By Rich Kaipust
World-Herald Staff Writer
Myrtha Pools of Italy provided the components for the Swim Trials competition pool, depicted in this artist’s rendering, and a warm-up pool that will be assembled starting Monday in the Qwest Center.Pacing and checking his watch like an expectant father, Harold Cliff waited for a special delivery outside the Qwest Center Omaha on Thursday morning.
Soon, six semitrailer trucks rumbled north on 10th Street past the chief operating officer of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials. The delivery? Pieces for two swimming pools that, when assembled, will hold a combined 2 million gallons of water.
Pool FactsÂ
- Manufacturer: Myrtha Pools of Italy
- Size: Arena pool is 50 meters long, 10 lanes wide, 3 meters deep, holds 1 million gallons of water and weighs approximately 8 million pounds. (The L-shape warm-up pool is larger.)
- Construction: Stainless steel sides and framework with laminated surface
- First use: 2008 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials at Qwest Center Omaha
- Companion: pool An L-shaped warm-up pool
- Largest pieces: End walls, three segments covering 25 meters; 2-meter-wide stainless steel side panels
- Water supply: Pools will be filled by Omaha Fire Department
- Installation: Five to eight days before water is added
- Workers: Twenty from Myrtha Pools and DWR Construction, of California. “That’s a lot of pool,” Cliff said.
And it was a long journey. The panels, pipes and myriad boxes were shipped 5,000 miles from the Myrtha Pools factory in Genoa, Italy, to the back doors of the convention center.
Assembly of the competition and warm-up pool puzzles starts Monday, when 20 workers from Myrtha and California-based DWR Construction Inc. begin a run of 16-hour work shifts. Also involved will be Qwest Center employees and local electricians and plumbers.
The delivery – by ship, train and trailer – was carried out by Werner Enterprises and included a half-dozen containers, each weighing around 30,000 pounds.
“It’s just a real mixed bag of stuff,” said Craig Stoffel, Werner’s vice president for global logistics.
Cliff wouldn’t even hazard to guess how many pieces were in that mixed bag.
“Literally thousands – right down to the last bolt, right down to the broom and dustpan,” Cliff said. “We’re talking more than 200,000 bolts alone.”
The largest prefabricated pieces will be the three segments that make up each 25-meter end wall. The side walls come in 2-meter-wide stainless-steel panels.
Although the eight-day U.S. Olympic Swim Trials don’t start until June 29, both pools must be ready for the four-day Mutual of Omaha Swimvitational beginning June 5.
Cliff said it will take five to eight days to complete the warm-up pool in the convention center, not including fill time. The first work on the competition pool in the arena would be May 19, with completion expected by May 28.
The stress on the arena and convention center floors will be at least 8 million pounds each. Each pool requires about a million gallons of water.
Roger Dixon, executive director of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, has discussed weight matters with the engineers who worked with the Qwest Center architects.
“They came back and said that is a lot of weight going on the floor, but we’re not in any jeopardy of any damage,” Dixon said Thursday. “The biggest thing is if you would lose a panel and all the water leaked out, that wouldn’t be good. But these are well-constructed pools, so we’re not concerned about it.”
The Qwest Center will be home to the Police concert Wednesday and WWE Judgment Day on May 18 before the pool foundation is started inside the arena. Those will be the last major bookings until a run of late-July concerts, although the convention center will still hold some smaller events.
Dixon, however, said any Qwest Center losses resulting from the pools have been minimal through June and into July.
“We’re really not losing anything major that we’re aware of,” Dixon said. “Tom O’Gorman (MECA director of sales and marketing) stayed on top of it and we navigated everything we wanted to book and pushed them into July.”
Cliff said both of the pools already have been sold. As far as the buyers and where they go next, Cliff said that’s “kind of confidential” and is a Myrtha responsibility.
