Here today, gone tomato: ‘Heinz Field’ landmark relocation complete

In Chicago, it’s practically a cardinal sin to dress your hot dog with ketchup at Wrigley Field. But in Pittsburgh, it caused quite an uproar for football fans when an iconic ketchup statue left the Steeler’s football stadium.

Additional exterior support braced the bottle on the Transcraft stepdeck.

A tremendous part of the Pittsburgh, PA sports culture, and synonymous with Heinz Field, were two giant statues of ketchup bottles hung above the scoreboard, also known fondly as the “red zone.” But when naming rights changed hands and the arena became Acrisure Stadium, the condiments needed to come down, and Steffan Industries stepped up.

The company was tasked with assisting Laurel Print & Graphics on the relocation, renovation and installation of one of the bottles. Transporting the famous landmark required discretion, as it was being outsourced to be refurbished at Precision Body & Service in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. Due to the unique shape and status of the memorabilia, it was taken to an auto group that had the capability to fit the bottle in one of their paint booths.

“It originally was requested for crane service, and everyone just kind of automatically defaults when they see something big that needs to be lifted that a crane needs to be involved,” said Sandy Steffan, vice president, Steffan Industries. “But once we saw everything that was going be involved with it, from trying to transload it from the trailer into the paint booth in the tight space, a crane just wasn’t appropriate. We had two Hyster S120 12,000-pound forklifts with rigging booms on them. In essence, we kind of used those as mini cranes and performed a tandem lift.”

Steffan Industries performed a tandem lift on the bottle with Hyster S120 forklifts.

A work of art

Whenever the bottle needed to be flipped to paint the opposite side, it had to be pulled out and rotated so they could access the opposite side of it. The Steffan Industries team returned, brought the same forklifts back and maneuvered the bottle, flipped it over and then put it right back in.

“It was slightly more challenging when the bottle came back out, even though we used the same equipment,” added Steffan. “We had different touch points because it had its new paint finish and all that. Initially, we could use nylon slings and your lifting points didn’t necessarily matter. But after all the work was done, it was an extremely well-done paint job and graphics finish. It was just really a work of art.”

In order to maintain the integrity and the perfection of the work that had just been done, the Steffan Industries team had to use a little extra caution to make sure that anything that potentially touched it had extra padding, and additional exterior support braced the bottle on the Transcraft stepdeck trailer.

“There was a lot of head turning that morning, seeing a 33-foot foot ketchup bottle going down the road, when it was still dark out and people were still drinking their coffee and trying to wake up,” said Steffan with a chuckle.

Final installation was performed by Century Steel Erectors, with SII providing rigging support.

And as the convoy encountered Steelers fans on their morning commute, the team was met with cheers from rolled down windows and fist pumps in the air.

The refurbished bottle was returned and reinstalled above Gate C of the stadium, now known as Heinz Gate, and peace was restored in the Steeler’s fandom.

Industry awareness

Steffan said one of her favorite parts of the entire project, besides involvement as a small family business, was being able to help draw attention to the industry.

“There was a lot of head turning that morning, seeing a 33-foot foot ketchup bottle going down the road, when it was still dark out and people were still drinking their coffee trying to wake up.” Sandy Steffan, VP, Steffan Industries

“I just think it’s really important to help children and the rest of the public see the fun part of crane, rigging and transport,” she added. “We really do something different all the time, and every job that you go to is unique. There’s always different ways of looking at things, and different ways of performing the work. We don’t ever just show up somewhere and do the same thing every day over and over and over again.”

Steffan Industries will also be contracted for the transport and installation of the second bottle to the Heinz History museum in downtown Pittsburgh.