Connect with us

Milwaukee, WI

Baird Center’s structure is engineered for big boats and ‘Jump Around’ – Milwaukee Business Journal

Published

on

Baird Center’s structure is engineered for big boats and ‘Jump Around’ – Milwaukee Business Journal


Mike Vogel’s structural engineering team at Graef designed the Baird Center to be strong enough to carry the weight of a boat show, and stiff enough to avoid vibrations causing a “Jurassic Park” ripple effect in wine glasses if a crowd jumps in unison to a live band’s hit song.

Those are just some of the standards used to engineer the addition onto the downtown Milwaukee convention center. Some of the structural challenges are even more stringent than the demands on a typical arena, for example.

Vogel is a principal and senior structural engineer for Graef, the Milwaukee-based consultant that handled that work for the $456 million Baird Center expansion that is set for a mid-May grand opening.

Advertisement

“It’s really fun to be a part of helping solve society’s challenges, whether it is a large vertical construction project or designing a robot or machine to help us,” Vogel said.

Heavy loads

The addition is designed to feature big, open spaces for its two major convention halls, and Vogel’s team tested to make sure the structure could handle the weight of those events.

“This is long-span that has to take expo center loads, which are gigantic,” Vogel said. “You can imagine a boat show, or a hot tub show with a bunch of tubs filled with water.”

That means the floors of the convention hall are built to handle more weight than, for example, the roof of a typical sports arena. General building code standards require the roof of an arena to handle the weight of its own materials – called “dead weight” – but also up to about 30 pounds per square foot of snow buildup on top. The convention center’s exhibit spaces, by contrast, must handle up to 350 pounds per square foot in addition to their own dead weight, Vogel said.

Advertisement

“That gives them the maximum flexibility to attract events the community can appreciate,” he said.

Graef principal and senior structural engineer Mike Vogel signs a ceremonial beam for the Baird Center expansion.

Graef

Bad vibrations

It’s a whole different challenge to stop those stout floors from vibrating as people walk around or dance, or as bands play music with heavy bass.

Advertisement

That was another factor to consider, since the Baird Center’s second-floor ballroom is directly above its exhibition hall.

“You don’t want to excite that floor so that the lights below start moving,” he said.

Stopping that vibration is a separate challenge in addition to designing a structure to support weight without collapsing, Vogel said. Wisconsin Center District officials wanted the ability to have dinner and dancing in close proximity without glasses vibrating on tabletops, he said.

“Low bass starts to resonate with structure and can excite a structure so it can start to want to move harmonically,” Vogel said. “There’s different criteria if you have a concert and you have a bunch of people doing ‘Jump Around’ and all bouncing in unison. That will also excite a structure. That is very different than somebody walking on the floor.”

The depth of the structure contributes to its stiffness, and also more structural mass will dampen vibrations, for example.

Advertisement

Big numbers

Vogel ran through some of the stats on the materials that comprise the Baird Center’s structure.

It has 6,000 tons of structural steel, or about the equivalent to 12 fully loaded Boeing 747 airplanes. That includes more than 569,069 separate pieces of structural steel, held together by 169,152 structural bolts.

Think of those as the pieces of a Lego set or an Ikea table that haven’t been assembled. Graef designed the structure and created the instructions telling builders how to put them together. Bringing that work in house was among Vogel’s initiatives at Graef that can cut weeks off a project schedule. During the original convention center’s construction, paper design drawings were sent to an outside firm that drew up the assembly instructions.

Builders on the Baird Center expansion used those instructions to tell steel suppliers which parts to ship to the site and when they’d be needed.

Advertisement

“It comes out to about four truckloads, twice a week,” Vogel said. “They get four truckloads of steel. They erect that. They get another four truckloads. They continue until they are done.”



Source link

Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee fatal shooting; Water Street bar manager wants safety changes

Published

on

Milwaukee fatal shooting; Water Street bar manager wants safety changes


A person of interest remains in custody following a fatal shooting on Water Street that left one person dead and two others injured early Sunday.

The Milwaukee Police Department says 22-year-old Dylan Jackson was killed. An 18-year-old and a 19-year-old were also injured.

Advertisement

Local perspective:

Before the shooting, a bar manager says the area was already chaotic.

Tim Sluga, general manager of Duke’s on Water, said problems were brewing outside the bars before shots were fired. He said he was working Saturday night into Sunday morning and feared violence would occur.

Advertisement

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX LOCAL Mobile app for iOS or Android

“Chaos. It was just chaos outside,” said Sluga. “The pistol whippings, the shootings, everything else. The street was already chaos when that happened.”

Advertisement

Sluga said he was working Saturday night into Sunday morning and feared violence would occur.

“My reaction in general that night was, ‘here we go again,’” said Sluga. “It’s sadly not surprising.”

Sluga said the violence over the weekend reflects a recurring problem in the entertainment district.

Advertisement

Dig deeper:

Last July, city leaders held an emergency meeting after increased violence in the area. Police later announced plans to increase their presence and curb loitering.

Advertisement

Sluga said he expected more enforcement.

“We were told by MPD there was going to be a curfew enforced this year, we didn’t see that this weekend,” said Sluga.

Some patrons say they are also frustrated.

Advertisement

SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News

“It’s like the younger crowd pushing out the older crowd now. If you ain’t 21, there’s no reason for you to be down here,” said Dequan Cave of Milwaukee.

Advertisement

Sluga said bars themselves are generally safe, but problems occur outside.

“It’s a great place and there’s a lot of really good people,” said Sluga. “These are just issues that are out of our control.”

What’s next:

Advertisement

MPD said a Code Red deployment focused on safety in the entertainment district was in place over the weekend. Police also say plans may be modified to improve downtown safety.

The Source: The information in this post was collected and produced by FOX6 News.

Advertisement
Crime and Public SafetyMilwaukeeNews



Source link

Continue Reading

Milwaukee, WI

Can the Brewers duplicate the success of 2025? Here are our predictions for 2026

Published

on

Can the Brewers duplicate the success of 2025? Here are our predictions for 2026


play

Spring training in Phoenix has wrapped up and the Milwaukee Brewers are set to begin the 2026 regular season at 1:10 p.m. Thursday, March 26 at American Family Field against the Chicago White Sox.

The Brewers exceeded expectations in 2025, recording a franchise-record 97 wins and the best record in baseball (97-65) and advancing to the National League Championship Series. Can they match that in 2026? Here are Journal Sentinel staff predictions for the season.

Advertisement

HOW I SEE IT: I understand what I’m doing with this prediction, ultimately putting so much of the Brewers’ 2026 outlook on a group of largely unproven, young starters. But I think the Brewers do, too. I’d be lying to you if I said I felt good about the plan to throw Brandon Woodruff and a cavalcade of guys with minimal big-league experience, but I also have to acknowledge the potential upside here. It’s been a few years since the Brewers’ rotation was this talented, and we know what the Brewers can do with those kinds of arms. On offense, I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat concerned about their chances of repeating last year’s scoring output without adding any external thump to the lineup. My brain says it’s going to be a step back this year – although not a big one, maybe just to a wild-card spot – but my eyes have seen this film before. And it usually ends with the Brewers fielding a roster much better than the public is giving them credit for.

2026 PREDICTION: 89-73, NL Central champions, lose in NL Wild Card round.

HOW I SEE IT: Count me among the group of non-believers a year ago at this time. Heck, as late as the start of that series against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park in late May I penned a story guessing all the players the Brewers would be trading away in the near future because they were going nowhere. How wrong I was. And I’ve learned my lesson – don’t bet against these guys. Especially with the bulk of the team that ended up winning a franchise-record 97 games and advanced to the National League Championship Series for the first time since 2018 returning. No doubt, Freddy Peralta would look really good anchoring the staff. So would Caleb Durbin at third base. All five of the players Milwaukee received in return are going to factor in, however, with right-hander Brandon Sproat, left-hander Kyle Harrison and infielder David Hamilton in particular expected to fill large roles. There are major questions – most notably whether veteran Brandon Woodruff can remain healthy and how the young starting pitching will fare. No question, the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds and Pirates are all improved. But the road to the Central Division title has run through Milwaukee the past three years, and this group expects to win.

2026 PREDICTION: 90-72, NL Wild Card spot, advance to NL Division Series.

Advertisement

HOW I SEE IT: I should finally just trust that this franchise can identify the correct unproven arms in the rotation and players who weren’t seen as building blocks in other organizations, transforming that brew into a runaway Central Division title. They did it last year. And 2024. And 2023. Why do I still have this nagging feeling that 2027 will be the year the Brewers really swing for the fences, and 2026 is about seeing what they’ll still need? Remember how weird it was that the Brewers thrived at scoring runs last year because other teams kept committing errors? They were one of the best run-scoring offenses in baseball, and yet it still feels like they got a lot of breaks offensively. Then, they didn’t get perceptively better in the offseason, while the chief rival Cubs and other NL Central brethren did. You know what? Maybe the Brewers just need the semi-professional prognosticators like me to keep hating. And maybe it’s just impossible for me to accept this team has solved the riddle of how to win consistently without overtly addressing their perceived weaknesses. One of these years, though, they really won’t get away with it.

2026 PREDICTION: 86-76, miss playoffs (barely)



Source link

Continue Reading

Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee man identified as victim in shooting that injured four others

Published

on

Milwaukee man identified as victim in shooting that injured four others


play

A 25-year-old Milwaukee man has been identified as the fatal victim following a shooting that injured five people on the city’s north side.

Simeon I. Calvert was shot on March 21 a little after 11 a.m. at the intersection of North Darien and North 37th streets, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Advertisement

Calvert was transported to a hospital where he died in the operating room, the medical examiner said.

Four other people were injured in the shooting, ranging in age from 20 to 29 years old.

Police said March 23 that they have “persons of interest” in custody but continue to seek additional information.

The investigation is ongoing, police added, but it is believed that the incident was the result of an argument.

Anyone with any information about the incident is being asked to contact the Milwaukee Police Department at 414-935-7360. To remain anonymous while providing information, contact Crime Stoppers at 414-224-TIPS.

Advertisement

This story was updated to add new information.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending