Globe Life Field update: Dirt truck traffic from new Rangers stadium will soon end
At its peak, trucks were hauling dirt from the Globe Life Field construction site 20 hours a day.
That hectic schedule has lessened somewhat but Arlington residents are still seeing a constant parade of trucks making the drive along North Collins Street from the stadium construction site to the Arlington landfill five miles away.
Crews, however, are nearing the end of the excavation for the $1.1 billion retractable-roof stadium.
"We're probably three to four weeks before we get all of the dirt completely out," said Jim Cuddihee, vice president of operations at Manhattan Construction.
The construction site, just south of the Texas Rangers current ballpark, Globe Life Park, is starting to resemble the outline of a baseball field.
Seventy feet below the surface, a red crane is parked near where home plate will stand in the southwest corner of the ballpark. Currently, about 250 construction workers are drilling piers and pouring concrete columns that will eventually support the stadium.
Despite the rainy February weather, the stadium is on track to open in time for the 2020 baseball season.
"The deadline is firm," said Wesley Weaver, vice president of Manhattan Construction Company, which is overseeing the project. "It's going to be finished in two years."
As the Rangers season progresses, fans will be able to see a new stadium rise out of the ground.
"By summer, we'll have main concourse poured," Cuddihee said. "By mid-summer, you'll start seeing structural steel coming up for the bowl section."
And by the end of the year, Cuddihee said they'll start working on the "fixed trusses" that will support the roof.
So what exactly will the ballpark look like?
Rob Matwick, the Rangers vice president for business operations, said the team isn't ready to show fans a final design just yet.
"I'm not sure I have a definitive timetable on when the next release of images will be but I think in the next few months we would be in a position to do that," he said.
When the Rangers showed some preliminary designs to the Arlington City Council last fall, some council members weren't happy with the look. Arlington voters approved the use of tax dollars to pay up to $500 million of the cost of the new stadium in November 2016.
Just beyond what will be left field in the new stadium, Texas Live!, the $250 million entertainment and dining venue is starting to take shape. It won't be ready for the start of the new baseball season but the entertainment portion should open in August, Cuddihee said.
Columns for Live! By Loews, a full-service 300-room convention hotel and a 35,000-square-foot convention facility are starting to come out of the ground. The hotel is scheduled to be completed in 2019.
The Rangers have already been in conversations with Cotton Bowl officials about how Texas Live! can be used, Matwick said. This year, the Cotton Bowl will be a semifinal game for the College Football Playoff. The game takes place on Dec. 29.
Bill Hanna: 817-390-7698, @fwhanna
This story was originally published March 7, 2018 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Globe Life Field update: Dirt truck traffic from new Rangers stadium will soon end."