Citizens Live at the Wylie
Citizens Live at the Wylie
Project Details:
Owner: Live Nation
General Contractor: PJ Dick
Date of Work: January 2025 - February 2025
Engineer: Langan
Approximate Key Quantities: Stone Columns - 214 EA.
Description:
Located in Pittsburgh’s historic Lower Hill District, the new Citizens Live at The Wylie venue is part of the continued redevelopment of the former Civic Arena site, bringing a new live music destination to an area with deep cultural and musical history.
The project consists of an approximately 100,000-square-foot, multi-story music venue with capacity for up to 4,500 concertgoers. Designed to accommodate a wide range of artists, performances, and special events, the venue will include performance spaces, audience areas, and backstage facilities. Once complete, the project is expected to add a major new entertainment destination to Pittsburgh’s nightlife and live music scene.
Ground Conditions:
To support the new music venue, Menard provided pre-augered Stone Columns to penetrate the variable fill and improve support beneath the proposed foundations. The solution was selected to address the site’s mixed fill conditions while providing a practical ground improvement approach for a structure being built on a previously developed urban site.
A key project challenge was the highly variable depth to rock across the site. In some areas, Stone Columns could not be installed as originally anticipated because bedrock was shallower than expected; in other areas, foundations initially expected to bear on rock required additional Stone Column support when rock was
encountered deeper than anticipated.
Menard worked closely with the project team to evaluate those transitions and address differential settlement between areas supported by Stone Columns and areas bearing directly on bedrock. The work also required coordination across two working bench elevations and winter construction conditions. Through careful field coordination, performance verification, and responsiveness to changing subsurface conditions, Menard successfully completed the Stone Column program and provided a verified ground improvement solution for one of Pittsburgh’s newest live entertainment venues.
Solution:
The site’s conditions proved to be a challenge for ground improvement installation. Because of the obstructions in the site’s upper soil, Menard Group USA crews pre-drilled in some areas to avoid damaging the CMC augers. Terminating the CMC rigid inclusions in the medium dense sand layer also proved to be tricky because this layer was very thin in some areas.
Settlement was a concern because of the site’s underlying soft organics. CMC rigid inclusions are a good solution for this site because they allow transfer of building’s future loads through the organics and into the bearing sand layer.
A total of 2,532 CMC rigid inclusions were installed to an average depth of 61 ft and met the settlement criteria of 2 in total, 3/4 in differential between column footings.
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