The amphitheater topped out in March 2025.
Photo courtesy of Barton Malow

The 10-acre site along Market Avenue was once an island in the Grand River. In the early 1900s, riverboats navigated a channel that later became Market Avenue, delivering people and goods into the heart of the city. Over time, the channel was filled in—often with whatever materials were available—to create more land for development. A farmers market once occupied the site, followed by a coal-fired power plant that supplied electricity to furniture factories lining the river. Later came an incinerator operated by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation and the city of Grand Rapids, followed by the city’s Dept. of Public Works.

“When we started digging, we found all of it,” Veine says. “The old riverbed, incinerator stacks, remnants of the power plant, even railroad tracks where coal used to come in.” That layered past came with consequences. Portions of the site were contaminated, meaning all excavated material had to be treated as Class II spoils. Rather than sending that material to landfills, the project team took a sustainable approach. About 180,000 cu yd of material were used to create the venue’s massive grass berm and seating bowl, with much of the existing material encapsulated beneath it.

The amphitheater is part of a broader riverfront revitalization that will bring top-tier entertainment and economic engagement to Grand Rapids, Mich., and the surrounding region.
Photo courtesy of Barton Malow

“That meant we kept a huge amount of debris out of landfills,” Veine says. “From a sustainability standpoint, that was pretty neat and pretty innovative.”

Stabilizing the ground beneath the amphitheater required nearly every geotechnical tool the team could muster. To support heavy point loads from the stage, canopy and parking deck, crews installed micropiles drilled deep into bedrock. In other areas, controlled modulus columns were used to grid and stabilize entire sections of the site, not just individual load points.

A third technique—surcharging—proved especially effective beneath the seating bowl. Crews built up the berm in stages, allowing it to settle under its own weight before adding more material. Over roughly eight months, the apex of the berm compressed by nearly 6 ft.

“You could actually watch it happen,” Veine says. “We had instruments across the entire site, and you’d see the graphs ramp up, level off, then ramp up again. Once it finally settled and stayed put, we waited about a month to make sure there was no more movement before building out the rest of the bowl.”

Complicating matters further was the region’s geology. Grand Rapids is known for historic gypsum mining, and lenses of gypsum embedded in limestone can dissolve over time, causing long-term settlement. To mitigate that risk, the team drilled deep micropiles and injected low-mobility grout as far as 60 to 80 ft below grade, stabilizing voids well below the surface.

All of that groundwork had to be carefully sequenced to maintain a 24-month construction schedule—no small feat on a tight urban site flanked by the river, Market Avenue, active rail lines and U.S. 131’s S-curve.

Workers placed 180,000 cu yd of soil in the amphitheater’s berm and topped it off with fresh sod.
Photo courtesy of Barton Malow

“We couldn’t just wait for one thing to finish before starting another,” Veine says. “While we were drilling and surcharging in one area, we were erecting structural steel in another. It’s a very different way of building compared to a hospital or high-rise.”

That overlapping schedule became even more critical once attention turned to the amphitheater’s most visually arresting feature: its sweeping steel canopy.

In March 2025, the project reached a major milestone when crews topped out the canopy’s structural steel. By that point, a massive amount of steel had been placed, signaling a major step toward realizing the venue.

The canopy comprises roughly 3.2 million lb of structural steel, with 54% of it cantilevered. Veine notes the structure could cover virtually any professional or collegiate stadium, and it required five super trusses to form its backbone, including a center truss so deep it could contain a two-story house.

The amphitheater’s canopy is bolstered by two nodes, each weighing 21,000 lb and supported by deep micropiles.
Photo courtesy of Barton Malow

The canopy is supported by two steel columns—with three branches on each side—that converge into the ground-level cast steel nodes. Those nodes create an unobstructed view for spectators while also enhancing acoustic performance by keeping sightlines and sound paths clear.

“The loads are enormous,” Veine says. “You’ve got gravity loads coming down, but you also have massive wind uplift. It’s basically a giant wing.”

Each of the two primary columns transfers load into a concrete foundation block supported by twenty-five 9-in. cased micropiles, battered outward like the roots of a tree. Those piles extend roughly 100 ft to bedrock and are socketed another 50 ft into the rock to resist both downward force and wind uplift.

Because of the canopy’s size, much of the fabrication had to happen on site. Trusses were assembled in the field before being lifted into place, requiring intricate crane planning and falsework engineering. Two custom-cast steel nodes—each weighing about 21,000 lb—were fabricated in Brazil. Domestic forges were large enough to handle the nodes but could not provide the required machining.

“The engineering was done in Toronto, the sales team was in Dallas, the casting was done in Brazil and then we flew the nodes on a C-17 to Miami and trucked them to Grand Rapids,” Veine says. “That gives you an idea of the complexity.”

In total, ironworkers placed more than 1,600 tons of steel and more than 51,000 lb of bolts throughout the project. The largest truss weighed nearly 255,000 lb.

Building the canopy relied on a collaborative delivery model. Rather than use a traditional hard-bid process, the team used a design-assist approach that brought fabricators, engineers and steel erectors together early. Local firms partnered with national stadium specialists, blending regional knowledge with large-scale venue experience into a team that became known as Steel Team 6.

What eventually became Acrisure Amphitheater’s 2-million-lb canopy reached substantial completion in July 2025.
Photo courtesy of Barton Malow

“There really were no silos,” says Colin Martin, project executive at Barton Malow. “Meetings weren’t about keeping people out—they were about making sure everyone understood where the team was headed.”

Progressive Companies, which served as the design architect, architect and engineer of record, and lead structural engineer, on the project, which was driven by the goal of creating an iconic landmark for the city with a canopy that covers roughly 60% of fixed seating while preserving sightlines for all 12,000 seats.

A custom cast steel node, weighing 21,000 lbs, was sculpted to resolve massive load transfer with a form that reads as intentional and refined. The same instinct carried through to the canopy's beam and truss structure.

 "That bracing on the underside of the canopy is structural through and through," says Jacob Loew, structural engineer at Progressive Companies. "The fact that it lights up at night and becomes part of the show — that's what can be achieved when design and engineering work together toward a singular design intent."

"There was never a conversation about compromising the sightlines," adds Erica Flannery, Progressive Company's lead structural engineer. "Everything we designed and engineered had to serve the guest experience first."

The result is a  "canopy that is an organic, flowing shape — there's nothing simple about it geometrically," she adds. "Our job was to find the logic inside that form and make the structure feel just as inevitable as the design."

Martin says that culture of collaboration took root during preconstruction when leadership from all firms worked closely with ownership and trade partners to shape the project.

“You could tell early on that this was going to be a true joint venture,” he says. “The collaboration between estimators, planners, project managers and trade partners was seamless. By the time we got to the field, it felt like one team.”

At peak, about 350 workers were on site on a daily basis, with roughly 1,200 workers involved over the course of construction. Crews worked just 60 ft from the river’s edge, coordinating closely with the city, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other contractors currently building a public riverfront park that will wrap around the venue.

The amphitheater is scheduled to reach substantial completion May 1, with its first public concert set for mid-May—an immovable deadline that added pressure to the project’s every phase.

“You feel it,” Veine says “There’s excitement building, and that brings pressure, but it also brings energy. Everyone knows what this project means to the city.”

The canopy was assembled on site with four shoring towers used during erection for support.
Photo courtesy of Barton Malow

That sense of community impact extended into workforce development. Pioneer partnered with the West Michigan Construction Institute, a Kent County trade school serving K–12 students, to use the site as an active lab. Students toured the project, shadowed tradespeople during special trade days and gained firsthand exposure to careers in construction.

“We didn’t put students to work—that’s not allowed—but we opened the site to them,” Veine says. “They saw ironworkers, electricians, concrete crews in action. Some of those students are graduating now and coming into the trades. That’s incredibly rewarding.”

Universities including Michigan State and Ferris State also used the project as a learning platform, with several students earning internships and, eventually, full-time roles on the project.

As the canopy now stands fully topped out against the Grand Rapids skyline, the amphitheater is transitioning from an engineering challenge into a civic landmark. For those who built it, the project is more than just another job.

“This one’s going to be hard to leave,” Veine says. “It’s transformational—for the riverfront, for downtown and for all of us who had a hand in it. This is a once-in-a-career kind of project.”