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Native Kansas City Architect, Team Player to Design Downtown Arena

Posted on: Monday, 31 January 2005, 21:00 CST

Jan. 31--Brad Schrock never liked the fetal pig in the bag of formaldehyde he had to keep in his room at the University of Kansas.

If he had, the leader of the team designing Kansas City's new downtown arena might have become a doctor as he had planned.

Instead, he found himself more interested in what his roommate -- first-year architecture student Steve Hunsicker -- was doing. Steve was ... drawing!

Schrock loved to draw. And then it hit him -- like a two-by-four.

"I think I might be interested in doing that."

More than two decades later Schrock is one of the most respected sports architects in the country. His projects include Coors Field in Denver, Safeco Field in Seattle and the America West Arena in Phoenix.

While Kansas City's Sprint Center showcases the design talents of three local firms -- something he doesn't want you to forget -- it is Schrock who synthesized multiple ideas into the design, and Schrock who is responsible for guiding it to completion.

It's a daunting task, and he feels the pressure to come through for his hometown.

He can't go anywhere in Kansas City without being asked about it.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "I was at a trustee meeting at my church, and you know, 'How's the arena going? What are we going to get? Is it going to be spectacular? You know, we really expect something great.' "

At 6:15 the morning after his team won the job, he tuned the car radio to a sports station. They were already talking about the circular glass design.

"People called in and said, 'Did you see that design those people came up with? It looks like a flying saucer!' I couldn't believe it. I just started having this anxiety attack."

Then there's the man he and his team beat out for the job -- none other than Frank Gehry, who has been called "our greatest living architect and one of the very greatest the century has produced."

Schrock knows what people will say if they don't like the new arena. "We could have had Frank Gehry."

"It's challenging," he said. "And I feel publicly the bar is set so high." A no-win situation?

"It's close," he said.

Good thing he's not afraid of a challenge.

By all accounts Brad Schrock lives for challenges. In architecture school he'd work on projects for three nights straight without sleep. When one of his houses needed a garage, he built one -- all by himself. He rode his bike 465 miles through the Rocky Mountains.

Twice.

As a teen in rural Olathe, he earned money in the summer by framing houses all day, then putting up hay until dark. And while most people have put on weight a quarter century after high school, Schrock has shaved 30 pounds off an already athletic frame by racing bicycles. Today he weighs a scant 145 pounds. His resting pulse rate is 41, or two points below his age.

"I've always liked to push myself as far as I can go," he said. "Find my limits. There is something about understanding how far you can push yourself mentally and physically."

By far his biggest challenge came in 1995 when he left a good job with Kansas City sports architecture firm HOK to start a business with longtime friend and colleague George Heinlein. The two left to take more control of their careers and to be able to spend more time with their families.

It was hard at first. They had to hire people, get clients, meet a payroll. What's more, they left with no significant savings or guarantee they would succeed. Their company, Heinlein Schrock Stearns, recently merged with local architecture firm CDFM2 and is now 360 Architecture.

Now Schrock has been chosen for a new challenge. Heinlein knows why.

"He is an extremely good listener and has the wonderful ability to set his ego aside -- well, that's hard to say because the man doesn't have an ego. And that's rare. Many talented designers have egos that get in the way of a collaborative process. Brad's not one of those."

Just ask Brad Clark, a key designer on the Sprint Center from Ellerbe Becket, where Schrock also once worked.

"It's weird," Clark said. "It's like you're sleeping with the enemy in a way, but we've put that aside, and we're all working together. We're having a blast."

Longtime acquaintances praise him, as do clients and competitors. A former architecture professor calls him "one of the fringe benefits to teaching."

The compliments are nice. But Schrock is clearly uncomfortable being the "face" of the Sprint Center. Others, he'll tell you, play a more significant role. Give them the credit. People like Clark and Steve Allison of Ellerbe Becket; Ben Barnert and Craig Milde of HOK; Bill Johnson and Ryan Gedney of 360 to name but a few.

But then, those who know him have come to expect that kind of humility.

"He's not concerned in puffing himself up," said Dave Griffin, who taught Schrock architectural design at the University of Kansas. "That could be a downside. (Clients) might perceive his compassion and sensitivity as a weakness. They might think they need someone to get down in the trenches and get after it. But then I've never seen anyone who was more tenacious than Brad."

As a boy growing up in Overland Park and Olathe, Schrock built models nonstop -- planes, cars, anything. He sketched, drew and tinkered with everything. He was always building a go-kart in the basement. When he raced motorcycles, he learned to disassemble his bike down to the last nut and bolt.

Schrock hit his first architectural grand slam with Coors Field in Denver, home of the Colorado Rockies baseball team.

The design turned heads. Brian Ellis liked it so much he asked for Schrock by name to design Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, in 1998.

"Brad has been as responsive and creative and talented a guy as you could find," said Ellis. "We wanted to be sure he was going to be involved in our project. He agreed and made a personal commitment to our success. He has more than lived up to that commitment."

ESPN the Magazine recently voted Nationwide Arena, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League, one of the finest arenas in the country.

Not that you'd ever hear that from Schrock.

When Schrock is not working on the arena or traveling for one of his other projects, he enjoys the simple pleasures of home. You'd expect an architect to have a nice house, and Schrock doesn't disappoint. He lives in an immaculate gray-green one-and-a-half story home in old Leawood with his wife, Mary, preteen sons John and Conner, and Luke, a golden retriever .

The home is airy and open with a California feel. It has a creek out front, many windows and hard pine floors that shine like Sunday shoes. As a present for his wife, Schrock custom-built stairs to the second floor out of timber he found in an old building. Walls are done in light green and golden yellow, sprinkled with a variety of paintings.

But the showplace is the kitchen, a large double room with a stainless-steel and butcher-block center island, 17 windows, three doors and a vaulted ceiling featuring a unique wood-and-metal truss support system Schrock designed for the space.

High overhead is a small square window with a wooden door that swings open from Schrock's upstairs office. His kids sometimes play there and have been known to lower a cup on a string and beg for snacks. Schrock hoped the window would be fun for the family.

"He's a great husband, and an incredible dad," Mary Schrock said. "When he walks through the door at the end of the day he's always in a good mood. He's excited to see the boys, and he's excited to be home."

But he's not perfect. Sometimes, she says, he simply works too hard. And then there's the matter of his suitcases.

"Sometimes he'll have to leave for another trip, and he still hasn't unpacked from the last one," she said.

It's OK, she said. He's such a hard worker something's got to fall through the cracks.

"Sometimes I just tell him to relax," she said. "And he tells me he relaxes by doing things."

She knows why he works so hard.

"He did not grow up with a lot," she said. "He was buying his own clothes in junior high. He worked from a very early age. I think he knew it was up to him to make it happen."

But work can never take the place of his family.

"I couldn't care less about being a famous architect or having people know who I am," he said. "That is so far off my radar. I care about being a good dad and a good husband and having good relationships with people. I care about having people thinking of me as a person of integrity and having a relationship with Christ."

Faith is important to Schrock. He doesn't wear it on his sleeve but rather weaves it into everything he does -- how he acts, how he speaks and treats others. He met his wife when both were advisers in the Young Life program, a Christian outreach ministry. The two have been married for 16 years now and attend Heartland Community Church in Overland Park.

Schrock didn't always have a rich spiritual life. When he was young, he had a wild side. While living in the country with his family near Lake Olathe, he drove too fast, shot guns in the air and lit the roads on fire.

Literally.

"Yeah, we used to light the roads on fire," he said. " We lived on this hill. We came to the conclusion that if we took some gasoline and poured it across the road and lit it, a fire would come up on the road. We could see the cars coming. This would be in the middle of the night. Some cars would come to a halt, and they would sit there for a few minutes looking at it, and they would turn around and go a different direction. Other cars would back up 20 feet and -- Vrrroom! Vrrrooom! -- race through the fire. I'm telling you it was hilarious."

Other activities were not so hilarious -- like the time he and some high school friends almost killed themselves while hill jumping in a Ford Pinto. It was his junior year, 1978. The car became airborne, then flipped end over end before spinning on its side. Schrock sat in the back, usually the safest place in an accident. Not this time. The driver's father had put heavy weights and metal shovels in the back to help the car gain traction in the snow. When the car flipped, the flying metal objects struck Schrock's head again and again.

When the car finally stopped, one of his friends had been ejected from the car. The other lay on top of him, badly cut. He managed to push him off and out a passenger window.

"I just remember thinking there was a faucet pouring off my head I was bleeding so much," he said. The accident broke his nose and fractured his skull. One more good hit from the weights, a neurosurgeon said, might have killed him.

Everyone recovered from the accident. But Schrock was never the same.

"I remember lying in the hospital thinking there's a reason that I'm here."

Back at Olathe High School, he became involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and accepted Christ. It was, he said, "a life-changing experience."

It wasn't his only one.

Between ninth grade and high school a friend invited him to live with the boy's uncle one summer in California while being paid to work on his house. One of the best experiences of his life, it took him away from friends who were getting into alcohol and drugs.

"When I got back I had separated myself enough to say, 'Boy, these guys are really going downhill. What have I been doing?' A lot of times I think if I hadn't have left, where would I have been?"

Likely in the same place he'd be if he hadn't ditched the formaldehyde pig: not designing the Sprint Center.

His former KU roommate, for one, is glad that he is.

"I can't think of a better choice," said Steve Hunsicker, now an architect in St. Louis. "Fortunately for Kansas City you have found a hometown jewel."

To reach James A. Fussell, feature reporter, call (816) 234-4460 or send e-mail to jfussell@kcstar.com .

BRAD SCHROCK'S ARCHITECTURAL RESUME INCLUDES:

America West Arena , Phoenix

Coors Field , Denver

Safeco Field , Seattle

Nationwide Arena , Columbus, Ohio

Stockton Arena , Stockton, Calif.

Allied Insurance Corp. Headquarters , Des Moines

Community America Ballpark , Kansas City, Kan. The architect on architecture

So what kind of architecture does the leader of the downtown team designing the Sprint Center prefer? We gave him a little quiz to find out.

QUESTION: Guggenheim Museum or the Sydney Opera House?

ANSWER: "Sydney Opera House. It's a waterfront building, and it's really cool. I like the shape."

Q: St. Louis Arch or the Golden Gate Bridge?

A: "St. Louis Arch. It's a piece of structure that is sculpture. It is absolutely beautiful and so powerful an image. The Golden Gate is a powerful image, too. But it's not this singular, 'Wow!' "

Q: Empire State Building or Seattle's Space Needle?

A: "Empire State Building. It represents to me that pioneering sky scraper spirit, because it's an old building. And it's stood the test of time."

Q: Taj Mahal or St. Peter's in Rome?

A: "St. Peter's in Rome. Probably because it's got a more refined beauty. It's opulent, but the Taj Mahal seems to me that it's over the top opulent."

Q: Frank Lloyd Wright or Walter Gropius?

A: "Frank Lloyd Wright. I just think his body of work is outstanding."

Q: Disney World's Epcot or R. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome?

A: "That's definitely R. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome." Brad Schrock

JOB: Co-owner of 360 Architecture in Kansas City; lead designer on the Sprint Center

AGE: 43

CITY: Leawood

FAMILY: Married for 16 years to wife, Mary; two preteen sons, John and Conner; golden retriever, Luke.

HOBBIES: Cooking, woodworking, biking the Rockies, sketching on church bulletins

BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW: He's competed in triathlons in Kansas City, Topeka, Springfield, Tulsa and Waco, Texas.

LOCAL SPORTS CONNECTION: "I was a huge Chiefs fan." As a kid, when the Chiefs played at home, his family "used to get in the car and drive to Sedalia and rent a cheap motel so we could get them on TV (because) they blacked out the KC area. "

SPECIAL MEMORY: " I built all the furniture in my kids' first room -- all these cabinets and cubbies and drawers. Then we moved, and I cried. I had invested so much time and effort into that house."

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(c) 2005, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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