Monday, March 27, 2000

By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

	Perfect demolition leaves Dome a fallen souffle More stories ... Photo galleries VR tour from the field Live shot of where the Dome used to be

In a flurry of flashes and booms, the Kingdome -- a storehouse of sports moments and cultural memories for more than two decades -- rumbled to the ground Sunday in 16.8 spectacular seconds.

More than 4,450 pounds of dynamite, unleashed over a span of tiny delays, blitzed one of the world's largest concrete domes -- one day shy of its 24th birthday.

Licensed blaster Thom Doud pushed a button, igniting 21.6 miles of detonation cord. The stadium's roof arches pulsed like holiday lights, and a burst of explosives echoed. The building groaned. Then, suddenly, the Kingdome buckled to the one force it had defied for years -- gravity.

The 25,000-ton concrete roof crashed down, shooting a cloud of fine white dust into a blue sky. People watched in awe from downtown streets and from flotillas of boats in Elliott Bay.

In Pioneer Square, they raised their arms and cheered -- until, suddenly, the dust cloud -- more than 500 feet high -- sent people scrambling like extras in the Blob movie.

But some people reveled in the dust. They pulled out scuba and gas masks and watched it settle. "It's amazing how something with so much history can disappear so quickly," explained Brina Sanft, a local musician. "I just want to grab a piece of it and hold onto it forever."

After 20 minutes, the dust cloud thinned, revealing the fate of the stadium that had been pared in recent weeks: It had become a sunken souffle.

"The roof did its job, the gravity engine worked. It provided the energy we needed to pull the columns inward," said Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc., the Maryland-based company whose handiwork brought down the Dome.

"The demolition went perfectly," said Tom Gerlach of Turner Construction Co., which is building a new football and soccer stadium on the site. "The relief is palpable."

Immediately after the blast, crews began work to crunch and haul concrete at the site. Meanwhile, in neighborhoods, phalanxes of street cleaners began to clear dust while other crews checked for damage.

Seattle fire and police reported no major injuries. Authorities, however, reported scattered incidents of broken windows.

The blast changed history.

Gone was the place where people had seen their first Mariners game or Rolling Stones concert; gone was the place visitors had met a future spouse or sealed a friendship; gone was a piece of Seattle's skyline, a symbol -- along with Mount Rainier and the Space Needle -- that defined a mossy corner of the country.

"This is one of the few times we've watched the same building go up in our lifetime and come down in our lifetime," said Larry Kreisman, an architectural historian for the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board.

"The Kingdome was prominent. It always had people's attention. They may have liked it. They may have disliked it. But it was always in their eye."

Thousands of spectators, defying suggestions to watch the implosion at home on television, crowded downtown streets and searched for elevated lookouts with prime views of the stadium's collapse. The implosion of a building that means so much to so many was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

On the 28th floor of the Smith Tower, 2-year-old Wyatt James Kendall shrank from the window and sank into his dad's shoulder when the blast touched off.

Smith Tower rumbled and swayed slightly, and the implosion set off a fire alarm.

People applauded the Kingdome's last show. But some, such as Mark and Elaine Dale of West Seattle, admitted a bit of sadness. "I look at it as a funeral," said Mark Dale. "It's part of the skyline. It's kind of ugly, but it's like the ugly cousin you've always liked."

At a park behind Harborview Medical Center, Maille Kessenich, who spent the night to get a good view, said, "I guess we should be a little sad. But we're not. Destruction's cool."

Even before yesterday's spectacle, regular life in Seattle sustained minor disruptions: Major highways, such as Interstates 5 and 90, were closed or had traffic slowed; the city imposed a wide restriction area for south downtown, and traffic detours re-routed Metro buses.

But far fewer people than expected clogged roadways or tried to gather downtown, transit and fire officials said. And most major roadways were back to normal within 45 minutes of the implosion.

The event was broadcast live on Seattle's three major network affiliates, beamed across the Internet and shown in New York's Times Square.

The founder of Controlled Demolition Inc., Jack Loizeaux, whose sons conducted the implosion, did not want to miss the spectacle. He called the Kingdome a feat of engineering.

A key engineer behind the Kingdome's design was the late John Skilling, who had a hand in designing New York's World Trade Center. Another top engineer for the Kingdome, Jack Christiansen, was devastated by the implosion.

"It makes me sick," said Christiansen, who once stood on the Kingdome's roof to prove the stadium would not, as some had claimed, fall down. "Such a sad thing."

Ironically, the stadium's demise was sealed by forces that helped to create it: economics. In the 1960s, when the idea began to gather steam, people envisioned it as a way to put Seattle on the map.

Early on, local planners believed a new stadium would dovetail with economic growth and civic enhancement -- future-looking themes that were cornerstones of the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.

As part of a 1968 effort called Forward Thrust, voters passed a $40 million bond. Later, following much debate, plans went ahead to put the stadium near the King Street train station.

Ground was broken in 1972, and more than three years later, when construction ended, the stadium's price tag had reached $67 million. That, however, could not dampen the public's enthusiasm -- more than 54,000 people showed up for the Dome's inaugural program in 1976.

Yesterday, former Gov. John Spellman, who helped shepherd the Dome as King County executive from the late 1960s to early 1980s, refused to watch the implosion.

"That would be like going to a family member's autopsy," said Spellman.

But the implosion attracted the attention of the world, for various reasons. "People see a building that has been around for a long time. It amazes them that something so permanent can turn to rubble in seconds," said Doug Loizeaux, CDI's vice president. He added that he thought some people would watch in anticipation for something to go awry.

But, the implosion was picture perfect.

The acupuncture-like placement of explosives in 5,905 holes turned the 250-foot Kingdome mountain into molehills of slab.

The blast crews approached the Kingdome with healthy respect for its engineering. The stadium had to be strong enough to withstand an earthquake in a seismically active region such as the Puget Sound area.

But it also had to be flexible enough to handle the motion created by the Earth or the shuffling of the more than 73 million visitors.

The construction was a marvel.

A tension ring, at the base of roof, packed 8 million pounds of pressure; and support columns, threaded with rebar, gave the building the equivalent of strong bones.

"It's a mind stretcher," said Mark Loizeaux. After he won the contract to implode the Kingdome last year, he drove his rental car to the stadium's parking lot and stared at it for four hours.

The Dome also was in the public eye because of money; the county still must pay $206 million for the Kingdome -- costs accrued from interest on original construction bonds, and for roof and ceiling repairs from five years ago. (The money, which will be paid by 2016, will come from a hotel tax and car-rental tax.)

"It's a one-of-a kind situation," said Kreisman, the architectural historian. "Here it is, we are destroying something, and it isn't even paid off!"

But as sports economists have observed across the country, old multi-purpose stadiums do not generate as much money as one-event stadiums.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who owns the Seahawks, knew that a healthy portion of a team's money comes from stadium revenue, including money from premium seats and luxury boxes. But the future at the Dome looked bleak.

The overall Kingdome demolition will cost $9 million.

Implosion was preferable to a wrecking ball and crane because of the stadium's complex structure.

The crane method would have exposed workers to greater danger and exposed the Pioneer Square area to dust and noise for at least two years.

Not only is implosion faster, but it also shows respect for old buildings, Mark Loizeaux said.

Rather than beat them down for a long time, you knock them out swiftly.

And yesterday CDI did just that. The Kingdome -- an old friend who meant so much to so many -- was blasted into memory.

P-I reporters Aliya Saperstein, Scott Sunde, Heath Foster, Amy E. Nevala, Lewis Kamb, Judi Hunt and Andrew Schneider contributed to this report.