Cranes from ALL Sunshine help renovate the Citrus Bowl

The Florida Citrus bowl is undergoing $200 million in renovations that include the removal of a suspended walkway, in which ALL Sunshine Crane Rental Corp., a member of the ALL Family of Companies, played a major role.

ALL Sunshine was hired by Abatement Central, a subcontractor for Independence Demolition of Independence, Ohio, to remove the 43-foot-long, 23,000-pound suspended walkway of the Florida Citrus Bowl positioned in the center of post-tensioned concrete supports, which had to remain undamaged. In addition, numerous 45-foot, 30,000-pound precast panels from the outside of the upper section of the stadium were to be lifted down and replaced.

ALL Sunshine used a 100-USt Liebherr LTM 1100-4.2 all-terrain crane, but to remove the walkway, the crane faced an opening only 29 by 31 feet. Due to the difficulty of the lift, Dave Hall, project coordinator at ALL Sunshine, utilized ALL’s 3D Lift Plan software to help plan the job. 3D Lift Plan calculated that the walkway could be removed with the crane’s telescoping boom operating at 74.2 feet with 37,900 pounds of counterweight, enabling the crane to handle a 15,000-pound load at only 60 percent of its capacity. The sling tension was 11,698 pounds.

Because the walkway could not be lowered without potential damage to the concrete supports, it was rigged with custom cables for slinging. Then slow, careful swinging and telescoping enabled the removal of the walkway.

For taking down the precast panels, 3D Lift Plan demonstrated that the telescopic boom needed to extend 110.9 feet, with the same 37,900-pound counterweight as for the walkway, operating at merely 61 percent of capacity.

The reconstructed 65,000-seat Citrus Bowl will feature a rebuilt lower bowl, a new digital video scoreboard, more specialized seating options, and a 10,000-square-foot “party deck.” The city hopes to host a future Super Bowl once the renovations are complete.