Rogers Centre

PVC (Vinyl) Roof at Rogers Centre Keeps Toronto Blue Jays a Strong Contender

ROOFING CHALLENGE: The Rogers Centre, home of Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays, is renowned for its early adoption of a fully retractable motorized roof to allow game days in all kinds of weather. Over the course of 30 years, a PVC roofing membrane had competed well with Toronto’s Lake Ontario winds, heavy snow buildup and temperature extremes. However, the day the steel roof deck was punctured by a massive ice chunk falling from the nearby CN Tower, the tallest freestanding structure in the Western Hemisphere, Rogers Centre owners knew a roof replacement was their only call. And they wanted to replace the PVC membrane covering 460,000 square feet of surface without depositing it in a landfill.

PVC (VINYL) SOLUTION

With its dome a signature architectural feature of downtown Toronto’s skyline, Rogers Centre needed another engineered roofing system to repeat its winning record for withstanding heavy wind loads of as much as 120 mph. At a height of 282 feet, with unique configuration complexities, slopes and panels adorning its four retractable roof sections, the Sika Sarnafil Engineered System selected could be properly detailed to guarantee precise and watertight sections despite their openings and closings. An engineered PVC roofing system is mechanically attached to the roof deck in a fastening pattern custom designed to bear extreme dynamic loads produced by wind uplift.

Sika Sarnafil administers a roof “take back” program through which roofing contractors can help the manufacturer reclaim used PVC material that will find new life in roof membranes or walkways. The program has recycled more than 80,000,000 pounds of processed material; it is also third-party verified in sustainability attributes for promoting increased use of recycled content and fostering partnerships to make take-back programs easier. Because the 30-year-old membrane was largely in excellent condition, it made an ideal candidate for recycling. In addition, some of the existing insulation was still dry and could be kept in place – even as the PVC membrane removed would ultimately protect and sustain another building.