In May of 2016, when Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers ownership group announced their plans to construct a new Arlington home for their ballclub, just 17 miles to the west, the duct fabrication team of Spiral Pipe of Texas, Inc. (SPOT) got excited. 

The Texas Rangers had made a bold decision to abandon a stately current ballpark built in 1994 in order to solve two big problems that had plagued the organization since the team arrived in North Texas in 1972. The Texas summer was hot, which affected fan turnout and the recruitment of players. Owners Ray Davis and Bob Simpson, along with the supportive City of Arlington, embarked on building a retractable roof stadium that would include air conditioning too – solving both problems once and for all.

The owners built this new ballpark, Globe Life Field, in the shadow of another notable stadium: Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Owners selected HKS as architect in early 2017.  Manhattan Construction was awarded the job and elected to partner with TD Industries as Mechanical Contractor for the high-profile project. TD brought SPOT into the project early and eventually awarded SPOT the opportunity to fabricate the bowl area duct – an arrangement similar to Cowboys Stadium.   

In addition to being the largest diameter duct SPOT had ever built, the job required using an innovative liner per the engineer’s direction. The 104” diameter galvanized spiral duct would be lined with over 50,000 Square Feet of Armacell’s 2” Armaflex FS.  

In order to speed the fabrication of spiral duct, cradles with caster wheels were designed and fabbed to allow for rotation of duct for angle ring installation, lining, and then for rolling completed 8-foot sections of duct into storage. We deployed an innovative forklift boom with wheels to help run the large diameter spiral duct.  

This tool helped the spiral pipe to form without collapsing due to the material weight prior to angle ring support. SPOT’s recently completed 9,000 SF storage facility located at the south end of its manufacturing plant allowed for completed material to be stored and await shipment. Small diameter angle rings were bolted to the installed angle rings to allow for trucks to be loaded using forklift poles.

$1.2 Billion Globe Life Field was scheduled to officially open in March of 2020 but the COVID-19 Pandemic delayed the beginning of the Major League Baseball Season. The stadium did officially open for a high school graduation in May of 2020.  The Rangers played their first game in their new home on July 24, 2020 and the stadium was ultimately able to host the 2020 World Series.