Dickies Arena’s electronic gates failed a city inspection but the venue opened anyway
An electronic gate that crushed a man outside Dickies Arena failed a city inspection just weeks earlier, when an inspector determined it was unsafe, records show.
But despite the failed inspection Oct. 24, the inspectors and builders compromised and allowed the $540 million Dickies Arena to open to the public on schedule. Their compromise: The gate could remain on the premises, as long as it was locked in an open position whenever the building was occupied.
Also, while the failed inspection caught several safety violations, it didn’t flag the mistake that actually caused the worker’s death: an open-close switch installed too close to the gate’s moving parts.
Just two weeks after the inspection, Dickies Arena hosted its first event on Nov. 8, a Twenty One Pilots concert.
And a few weeks after that, in the predawn hours of Dec. 7, a member of the arena’s overnight cleaning crew, Juan Carlos Julian Jr. , 24, was crushed to death by the electronic gate. Julian had worked a shift after a TCU basketball game at the arena.
At some point, Julian was locked outside the arena, and tried to re-enter from the electronic gate. But when he reached through the gate’s iron bars to click an open switch, his arm became trapped, and the force of the gate machinery crushed him between the gate’s posts and a brick pillar.
Julian’s death illustrates a problem that many engineering and safety experts say is rampant in the construction industry. Contractors are often under pressure to get projects built on time, and seemingly obvious safety violations can be overlooked.
Allison Gray, Fort Worth assistant planning and development director, acknowledged that inspectors can make conditional agreements with builders to keep projects on schedule.
“The building had to open to meet its deadline,” Gray wrote in an email, when asked about the Dickies Arena gate inspection.
City officials have repeatedly declined to comment on whether their inspections should have caught the improperly placed open-close switch that led to Julian’s death, but the city has adopted nationally-accepted building codes that should have prohibited the gate from being installed the way it was.
Probing the death
The Star-Telegram reviewed several hundred pages of documents related to permits and inspections at Dickies Arena during three years of construction.
In all, more than 500 inspections were tallied during construction of the 14,000-seat Dickies Arena, which is hosting the annual Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo through Feb. 8. Most of the inspections were during construction of the building’s foundation and framing, although there also were inspections of electrical, plumbing and other features.
But none of those inspections identified the key problem related to Julian’s death. A Star-Telegram investigation found his death could have been avoided had the gate been installed according to safety measures recommended by the manufacturer and at least two other organizations.
Specifically, the Star-Telegram inquiry determined, the gate manufacturer’s installation mandates that an open-close switch should not have been installed within 10 feet of the gate’s moving parts. Julian became trapped when he reached his hand through the gate’s metal bars to click the switch, which was only inches from moving parts.
Also, the manual warns that if a gate has gaps between the metal bars of more than 2.25 inches, a screened wire mesh should be installed to prevent someone from reaching through the bars. The gate where Julian died has gaps larger than 2.25 inches, but no mesh covering.
Details of the failed inspection
But, while the inspections didn’t catch those mistakes in the gate installation, they did uncover another safety problem.
On Oct. 24, during the final inspection for the arena, a city inspector noticed that the gate where Julian was killed and an identical gate about 100 feet to the north were blocking pedestrian exits. The gates, both of which provide access to Dickies Arena’s exhibit area on the lower level east side of the building, violated International Building Code 1010, the inspector wrote.
That code essentially says it’s OK to have an electronic locking gate at a building’s point of egress, but only if the gate is staffed by a person who can control the gate at all times. Also, the code requires an alternative exit for pedestrians to avoid using the gate. Dickies Arena doesn’t offer an alternative exit.
The city inspector, Sam Caricato, wrote “turned down” on the inspection report — a phrase that Gray says means the inspection has failed, or a problem needs to be addressed.
“The turn down reference refers to multiple violations to the gate,” Gray said in her email. “The gate was not going to be staffed. There was not a side swing gate for access to a public way, etc.”
The inspection report is dated Oct. 25, although Gray says the inspector actually caught the gate violation during a visit Oct. 24.
Another inspection report from that same day, also by Caricato, reflects the compromise that was reached to allow Dickies Arena to open on time. The notes for this report read: “east gates are to remain open while the building is occupied.”
A third-party inspection company, Winston Services Inc., was hired to handle all permitting and inspections for Dickies Arena.
Scant details about gate compromise
The city paperwork provides scant details about how the compromise was reached to allow the gate to remain on the premises.
Evan Roberts, Winston Services Inc. plan review and inspections manager, said he didn’t participate in the Dickies Arena project and couldn’t comment. Fort Worth documents show that Roberts’ predecessor, company chief executive Cherryl Peterman, handled Dickies Arena permits and inspections — but Peterman has since retired and couldn’t be reached.
Officials from Trail Drive Management Corp., the nonprofit organization formed to build and manage Dickies Arena for the city, have declined to comment on matters related to Julian’s death, citing a lawsuit.
Julian’s family filed a lawsuit in Dallas County against Trail Drive Management Corp., also known as Multipurpose Arena Fort Worth. The lawsuit also names two contractors, The Beck Group and TDIndustries.
Officials from The Beck Group and TD Industries also have declined to comment on matters related to Dickies Arena.
An out-of-state expert hired by Julian’s family as part of the wrongful death lawsuit has found that 14 mistakes were made in the installation of the gate machinery.
Dallas attorney Domingo Garcia, who represents Julian’s family, said he has investigated several hundred on-the-job injury cases and that it’s not uncommon for inspectors to miss crucial safety violations.
“There is a tendency for builders to put pressure get it done on time,” Garcia said in an interview. “It’s not unusual in city projects for people to cut corners.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Dickies Arena’s electronic gates failed a city inspection but the venue opened anyway."
