Some things I take on faith. This is one: When you build something for $1.5 trillion, the finished product isn’t apt to be a dump.
(Sorry. Lost count. The latest price tag on Mercedes-Benz Stadium is $1.5 billion — 10 figures, not 13. But with these pesky cost overruns, who can say?)
The AMB folks – “AMB” stands for Arthur M. Blank, as I’m guessing you know – held an open house at M-BS for media types Thursday, and that’s how they referred to the place: “Our house.” The partially built palace was also described as “transformative” and “amazing” and “iconic.” (Imagine how they’ll gush when it actually has seats.)
I probably should pause for a disclaimer: I’m not a guy who feels a pressing need to view an edifice under construction. Even if I do, I won’t know what I’m seeing. I know nothing about building or building materials or architecture. I can’t tell a truss from a trumpet. I’ve been in Home Depot maybe twice in my life, both times under protest.
Put it this way: I’m fascinated by the Braves’ rebuilding of their farm system, which is sports-related ; I care next to nothing about the building of their new stadium, which is beyond my limited purview. (Except for the part about how SunTrust Park is going to mess up traffic around where I live. I can go on about that for days.)
For reasons unclear, I agreed to sight-see inside the Falcons’ new stadium. Ten minutes in, I felt like Clark Griswold (as played by Chevy Chase) in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” The family embarks on a cross-country trip. Hilarity ensues. The Griswolds stop at a national park. Almost immediately, Clark seeks to usher everyone back to the car. His wife (as played by Beverly D’Angelo) says: “Don’t you want to look at the Grand Canyon?”
Clark turns to view this natural wonder. He bobs his head twice. After two seconds, he says, “Great. Let’s go.”
As noted above, I have every confidence M-BS will be majestic. (About the NFL team that will play inside it, I have less confidence.) But honesty compels me to report that majesty is not yet upon us.
There’s gravel where the field will be. There’s lots of concrete. There are many metal objects sticking upward. (From the upper deck, it felt as if I’d been imprisoned in an Erector Set.) The space-age retractable roof – apologies for the dated reference, but I’m of a generation where “space-age” meant something – hasn’t been assembled, let alone retracted.
No knock on our tour guides – they were nice and cheerful, as tour guides tend to be – but I really thought there’d be more to see. I’d been more impressed driving past MB-S than standing inside the place. (That could be because I’m not a connoisseur of concrete.) When you’re in your car on Northside Drive, the immensity of M-BS all but reaches out and smacks your windshield – especially when you espy the puny and doomed Georgia Dome alongside.
It’s the same dynamic that exists in Houston. Remember when the Astrodome – another artifact of the space age – was known as “The Eighth Wonder of the World”? It now sits scruffy-cheek-by-sagging-jowl next to NRG Stadium, which is so gargantuan as to make the erstwhile Eighth Wonder appear the size of a Barbie Dream House. (We in Atlanta won’t know that sensation for long. Unlike Houston’s dome, ours is due to be razed soon after M-BS opens its iconic doors.)
The tour was scheduled to last two hours. I ducked out a bit early. For my facile purposes, I’d seen more than enough. To borrow from the famed pitcher/pitching coach Johnny Sain: “Nobody wants to hear about the labor pains. They just want to see the baby.” Maybe that makes me the world’s shallowest person, but that’s how I feel about stadium construction.
I don’t need to see hammers meeting nails. Just tell me when toe meets leather.
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