ENR 2024 New England Best Projects
Award of Merit, Sports/Entertainment: Toscano Family Ice Forum
Photo courtesy JCJ Architecture
Toscano Family Ice Forum
Storrs, Conn.
Award of Merit
Submitted by: JCJ Architecture
Owner: University of Connecticut
Lead Design: JCJ Architecture
General Contractor: Turner Construction Co.
Civil Engineer: Langan
Structural Engineer: Macchi Engineers
MEP Engineer: CMTA
Ice Systems Engineering: B32 Engineering Group
The University of Connecticut men’s and women’s 97,300-sq-ft hockey arena includes an ice-level lounge with café seating and an upper-level club with lounge seating, a bar and expansive views.
The structure also features training facilities, team lounges, advanced locker rooms, a hydrotherapy area, strength and conditioning rooms, a puck shooting room, offices for coaches and a press box. Revisions during construction included exterior metal panels.
Photo courtesy JCJ Architecture
The 2,600-seat arena is aiming for LEED certification and adherence to Connecticut’s High-Performance Building Standards. It has electric ice resurfacers, eco-friendly materials and water-saving technologies. Mitigating subsurface conditions comprised of loose peat and solid rock included real-time logging through construction management software as well as performance testing. This optimized the stabilization process, allowed for data-driven decision-making and omitted unnecessary piers based on soil conditions.
The installation sequence complexities of the precast seating bowl and concourse slab-on-deck were solved with a custom stadia form fabricated in Oregon.
The $58.7-million project finished in 30 months at budget and on schedule.
