Doug Ballinger, left, and Mick Jones with SME Steel attach a cable to lift the ceremonial steel beam at a “topping out” ceremony for the Golden State Warriors new Chase Center arena in Mission Bay on Friday, Sept. 14, 2018. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)
By Michael Toren - Just one month before the Golden State Warriors begin their 2018-19 season – the last the team expects to play at Oracle Arena in Oakland – construction workers cheered as the very last steel beam of the Warriors’ new home in San Francisco was hoisted in place.
The beam, topped with an American flag and an evergreen tree and signed by more than a thousand constructor workers, was raised at private “topping out” ceremony on Friday.
There’s still plenty of work to do before the 18,064-seat arena opens a year from now in September 2019, but the milestone marks the completion of the steel support structure.
“It’s a very cherished tradition of the iron workers in this country,” said Jim McLamb, a senior vice president with Clark Construction Group. “It symbolizes that a job has been built safely and without loss of life.”
Construction workers said they were thrilled to work on the arena.
“I get to drive by this site every day with my daughter, and every time I tell her ‘your father was part of that project,’” said Scott Santos, who has worked on the project for more than a year. “That’s bragging rights that we all have, that we were a part of this. Not too many people can say that.”
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