Preparing SoFi Stadium for the Football Season

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

Coating crews overcome unique jobsite challenges as they assemble the NFL’s newest stadium. 

Once construction began for SoFi stadium, which hosts NFL football teams, the Los Angeles Rams and the San Diego Chargers, Cor-Ray Painting was called in to do the coatings portion of the job. Cor-Ray Painting is known for several large projects completed in the Western U.S. Among their extensive job list includes Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara and the Staples Center in Los Angeles.  

The original plan for the project was to have all 736,000 square feet of roof structure be painted by various shops across the U.S., but this proved too costly for the developers. Instead, they fabricated their structure overseas, which caused the first of many challenges for Cor-Ray crews. 

“We didn’t know who [developed the structure], and now we’re dealing with a paint that was applied in a different country,” said Cor-Ray president, Sergio A. Flores, to Ben Dubose of CoatingsPro Magazine. “So it changed the field scope for us, because there were recoat window issues and things like that.” 

Some segments of the structure required a full reblasting, causing other complex issues which had to be fixed on the job. Sometimes the entire member or module needed a reblasting in order to form a uniform coating across the structure. 

To accomplish this feat, Cor-Ray connected with coatings manufacturer, Sherwin-Williams. They proposed Cor-Ray begin using polysiloxane rather than polyurethane, which has a fairly short recoat window. “It was about simplifying the system and trying to be a little more economical,” said Sergio. 

Cor-Ray began their coatings work at SoFi in June of 2018 with the goal of its completion by the 2020 NFL season. Fortunately, the majority of the work had been completed by the turn of 2020, however there was still work to be done during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In particular, physical distancing requirements proved most challenging for the coatings crew. Sergio remarked that they often lost about an hour of work time each day due to extra protocols like not being able to have two workers use a man basket at the same time.  

“In order to meet the schedule with decreased productivity, we had to increase our workforce,” said Sergio. “The guys are working the same, but they have to do so many other things. What they produce in eight hours isn’t the same anymore.” 

Read the entire report to learn more about the construction of SoFi Stadium and how Cor-Ray got the job done despite the obstacles.

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