Hall of Fame Aquatic Center’s 27 Meter High Tower Goes to Precast

The Fort Lauderdale team selects the color and textures for the dive tower and review the construction plans.

by Laura Voet

The time has come to dive into the precast concrete fabrication process for the Hall of Fame Aquatic Center’s 27 Meter High Tower.

A few pictures from the field trip to Gate Precast in Kissimmee on October 16, 2020. The Fort Lauderdale team was there to select the color and textures for the dive tower and review the construction plans.

The Kissimmee plant manager stated that the dive tower is a very complex structure with a high degree of difficulty. Fort Lauderdale definitely gets the gold medal for most challenging design! Gate Precast has considerable experience with air traffic control towers with Fort Lauderdale’s dive tower becoming the newest cousin in this family.

Gate’s headquarters are in Jacksonville and they have eight plants across the southeast United States. It was an impressive operation and yard, all carpentry forms and iron work is constructed in house.

Manufacturing of the panels will begin this fall, followed by delivery in January 2021. The dive tower will be erected in February 2021.

As a unique and one of a kind structure, the dive tower construction process will be featured in a video documentary.

Check out the links below to see more about Gate Precast.

https://gateprecast.com/

https://gateprecast.com/learn/facility-tours/

The City of Fort Lauderdale Commissioners voted to fully fund the 27-meter dive tower and an Observation Deck on July 7th. It will be the first and only high diving tower in the USA and is expected to attract elite divers from around the world. It will be the second such tower with the first one erected in China. The high diving tower in Fort Lauderdale will be the only one of its kind with multiple platforms and additional features. Special thanks to Mayor Dean Trantalis, Vice-Mayor Steven Glassman, Ben Sorensen, Heather Moraitis, Robert McKinzie and City Manager Christopher Lagerbloom.

Observation-Deck

The City Commission, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Board of Commissioners, approved funding to support the addition of a north observation deck and 27-meter dive tower as part of the ongoing improvements at the Aquatic Center at a total cost of $7,870,261.

The 27-meter high diving tower will be constructed using precast concrete sections and includes decorative glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) cladding and decorative lighting.

The $5,101,060 cost will be paid for with CRA funds. The north observation deck adds approximately 2,800 square feet of amenity space and includes new elevator and stair tower access, architectural GFRC cladding on the building, and decorative railings and lighting. The $2,769,201 cost will be paid for with park impact fees.

Overall construction of the aquatic center is going on as planned and has not been impacted by the Covid-19 Virus.

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Look at the line of Concrete Trucks circling around the peninsula!

When the aquatic center reopens in the summer of 2021, it will continue to be the home of the International Swimming Hall of Fame Support ISHOF’s vision

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Ryan Guerra

4 years ago

This looks impressive. I hope the big meets return to Fort Lauderdale. It was a lot of fun to have US Nationals there and it would be nice if the YMCA went back there for winter nationals. Greensboro seems like a great place, but the Hall of Fame Pool was magical for the YMCA.