Faced with costs as high as $5M, “desperate” Hamilton County (Ohio) officials turned the job of replacing 39,000 seats at Great American Ball Park “into a massive do-it-yourself project,” according to a front-page piece by Dan Horn of the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER. The county “hired a local firm to design new molds for the seats, found a plastics company to make the seat backs and bottoms, and are paying former jail inmates and others about $10 an hour to install them.” About 17,000 of the new seats “already are in place.” County officials said that the seats are “stronger, better looking, more durable and less expensive than the originals.” Horn notes replacing seats is “not a business the county ever expected to be in, especially so soon after the original seats were installed,” as stadium seats “typically would be expected to last as long as 20 to 25 years.” But Hamilton County Stadium Dir Joe Feldkamp said that the ballpark’s seats “began to fail” as early as ‘08, just five years after it opened. He added that the county “contacted the manufacturer," Maine-based Hussey Seating, and the company "agreed to replace about 1,000 seats.” Hussey Dir of Marketing & Communications Chris Robinson said that the company “replaced the seats despite what he described as a ‘warranty issue’ with the county.” Horn notes the work “was complicated because the stadium uses four different sized seats, from 19 inches to 22 inches wide, depending on their location.” Feldkamp said that the seats “look so good the county might be able to make some money on the mold designs by licensing them to other stadiums.” Feldkamp said that “the project is ahead of schedule.” Horn notes the “goal is to finish no later than the All-Star Game in July” (CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 12/16).
