Fire at Liseberg's Oceana water park

[Christian]

How long has the project taken up to this point? Looking like gonna have to restart

In total Liseberg say that it has taken 10 years. Just water park construction has been about 2.5 years. I dont remember exactly but it started after I moved here so second half of 2021.

I would expect a rebuild to take at least 2.5 years considering they will need to investigate, design, possibly go to court and clean up before starting again. When they started in 2021 it was basically a flat parking lot with a finished design, all permits obtained and financing prepared. Now they have none of that. They dont know the cause of the fire, they dont know what is reusable, they dont know how to finish the build, they dont know who will pay for it and they have a plot which isn't very construction ready at this stage. They might also be held up by that investigation and eventual court cases of the missing employee. If the construction company is found at fault they might also want to switch to another one. The new company might have a backlog, wait time for materials, etc.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

Hmmm... Time to call on @Hixee again or anybody else who has any experience in how these massive construction projects work...

Does actual cash usually change hands before completion and handover? Or is it all done by contracts and promises to pay until the project is complete?

I ask this because, the few times I've been on construction sites (many, many years ago, and only working security when I was just 18-21,) those projects were fairly large projects. They were the Holiday Inn next to the Kassam stadium in Oxford and Holborne House in Derby, a large DWP call centre upon completion. The almost constant talk amongst the contractors on both of those sites, when fitting out, was of getting paid less / fined if the project ran over schedule.

This has always made me believe that projects on this scale are generally not paid for up front. I wouldn't have thought builds like this were just like hiring Bob the Builder up the road to do your extension, who needs 50% up front to buy materials, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Hixee]

Does actual cash usually change hands before completion and handover? Or is it all done by contracts and promises to pay until the project is complete?

When you're in the realm of multi-million projects, it's not practical from a financial risk perspective (to any parties involved) to deal in lump sum payments. It's a long process, and there are a million-and-one variations to this on a project specific basis, but usually it falls into this sort of process:

1. Up front, engagement sum. I've seen this vary hugely in value, but generally trying to cover some of the mobilisation costs (be that personnel or site cabins, infrastructure, enabling works (though on big schemes enabling works can be a whole multi-million contract in their own right), etc).
2. An agreed payment plan (usually monthly) where the contractor and client agree monthly figures based on forecast programmes. Not always as simple as "x million over y months, therefore x/y per month", but intended to prevent either party ever operating a massive financial risk. Generally this is based on figures from the contractor's costing people, but usually cross-checked by a client side quantity surveyor. This payment plan is usually regularly reviewed and updated (say 6/12 monthly) too, tracked against progress on site with input from the designers (me!), client, contract administrators, clerk of works, etc.
3. A final 'settle the bill' payment to the contractor. This can (and does often) take a long time to resolve as you need to.make sure everyone is happy with the prices.

Changes along the way (e.g. the client wants another storey added) can be dealt with in 2 or 3 depending on the negotiations.

So in a case like this, I imagine there's a good chunk of money changed hands (rightly so, from both parties perspectives), but there will almost certainly be no more money changing hands now until the lawyers have sorted everything out. Could well imagine this to be a process measured in years now - especially if they're going to rebuild it. There will be a load of claims and counter claims between the contractor and their subcontractors and it will take a long time for that to be sorted.

This stuff is messy enough as it is (we have teams of people who specialise in contract and payment management for big projects as it can become so difficult), but this fire will have made it significantly harder for everyone.

Not sure if that answered your question, and I'm only talking in very broad brush terms here - though is a generally similar arrangement I've seen on my projects in Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Germany and the UK, so would be surprised if this is some completely different arrangement.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

When you're in the realm of multi-million projects, it's not practical from a financial risk perspective (to any parties involved) to deal in lump sum payments. It's a long process, and there are a million-and-one variations to this on a project specific basis, but usually it falls into this sort of process:

1. Up front, engagement sum. I've seen this vary hugely in value, but generally trying to cover some of the mobilisation costs (be that personnel or site cabins, infrastructure, enabling works (though on big schemes enabling works can be a whole multi-million contract in their own right), etc).
2. An agreed payment plan (usually monthly) where the contractor and client agree monthly figures based on forecast programmes. Not always as simple as "x million over y months, therefore x/y per month", but intended to prevent either party ever operating a massive financial risk. Generally this is based on figures from the contractor's costing people, but usually cross-checked by a client side quantity surveyor. This payment plan is usually regularly reviewed and updated (say 6/12 monthly) too, tracked against progress on site with input from the designers (me!), client, contract administrators, clerk of works, etc.
3. A final 'settle the bill' payment to the contractor. This can (and does often) take a long time to resolve as you need to.make sure everyone is happy with the prices.

Changes along the way (e.g. the client wants another storey added) can be dealt with in 2 or 3 depending on the negotiations.

So in a case like this, I imagine there's a good chunk of money changed hands (rightly so, from both parties perspectives), but there will almost certainly be no more money changing hands now until the lawyers have sorted everything out. Could well imagine this to be a process measured in years now - especially if they're going to rebuild it. There will be a load of claims and counter claims between the contractor and their subcontractors and it will take a long time for that to be sorted.

This stuff is messy enough as it is (we have teams of people who specialise in contract and payment management for big projects as it can become so difficult), but this fire will have made it significantly harder for everyone.

Not sure if that answered your question, and I'm only talking in very broad brush terms here - though is a generally similar arrangement I've seen on my projects in Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Germany and the UK, so would be surprised if this is some completely different arrangement.

That answered my question perfectly and gave us all a good insight into the challenges ahead. Thank you.

So ultimately, the tl;dr is that just the finances, for a project like this, are a massively complex and difficult thing to manage at the best of times… But when insurers, lawyers and civil servants are involved, all bets are off… We may not even see another shovel lifted for a long time.

 

[Hixee]

So ultimately, the tl;dr is that just the finances, for a project like this, are a massively complex and difficult thing to manage at the best of times… But when insurers, lawyers and civil servants are involved, all bets are off… We may not even see another shovel lifted for a long time.

Bit in bold I wouldn't say is necessarily true as a result of the finances/legalities. There are ways that you could divorce the two from a legal process/payment perspective. The most immediate thing that is going to slow this down will be the investigation by the authorities (especially if someone has been killed) and the 'making safe' of the site for the investigation. I could imagine that spanning +3 months at least, but who knows. Once they've collected their evidence and are happy for the demolition to start ahead of the rebuild, I reckon it'd be a good +6 months to get back to 'meaningful construction' again. The courts can be tied up for years resolving the blame and payouts for the accident, but that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't start work rebuilding.

Then again - that does rely on all parties being willing to restart work quickly once the authorities are finished. The contractor may not be willing, the client may have difficult T&Cs to agree to, etc, etc.

In short - I think it will be a fairly long time until a) this waterpark is opened and b) the financial/legal ramifications are closed.

 

[Jonsson]

2 .An agreed payment plan (usually monthly) where the contractor and client agree monthly figures based on forecast programmes. Not always as simple as "x million over y months, therefore x/y per month", but intended to prevent either party ever operating a massive financial risk. Generally this is based on figures from the contractor's costing people, but usually cross-checked by a client side quantity surveyor. This payment plan is usually regularly reviewed and updated (say 6/12 monthly) too, tracked against progress on site with input from the designers (me!), client, contract administrators, clerk of works, etc.,

Very good summary, thought I should add some specifics for Sweden (I happen to work in the business)

We have two different types of contracts, current accounts and fixed price with adjustable quantities.

In current account contracts the client pays for every verified cost the contractor has plus a percentage. The client gets full insight in the economy as the contractor has to provide every single invoice they get.

Fixed price contracts have every single construction item codified (there's a standard in Sweden called AMA which include every single type of work, what's included and to what standard it should be done) and the contractor has set a price per single unit of the item. The client pays for the work the contractor can verify has been done.

In both cases payment is usually done once per month and in both cases only on verified work done.

 

[Hixee]

Very good summary, thought I should add some specifics for Sweden (I happen to work in the business)

We have two different types of contracts, current accounts and fixed price with adjustable quantities.

In current account contracts the client pays for every verified cost the contractor has plus a percentage. The client gets full insight in the economy as the contractor has to provide every single invoice they get.

Fixed price contracts have every single construction item codified (there's a standard in Sweden called AMA which include every single type of work, what's included and to what standard it should be done) and the contractor has set a price per single unit of the item. The client pays for the work the contractor can verify has been done.

In both cases payment is usually done once per month and in both cases only on verified work done.

This is ace. I cant say I've come across the latter in my career so far, but can well imagine how that could work. Thanks for the elaboration.

 

[Christian]

and the 'making safe' of the site for the investigation.

How do you think this making safe could work? If the building is too dangerous to be entered and at risk of eminent collapse. Will the current burned structure be strengthened to allow investigators in or will the unsafe parts be demolished before investigators are allowed in?

Also does potentially searching for human remains affect this process? For example, will they avoid any demolition before human remains are found?

I'm just asking out of curiosity of how it usually is handled at construction sites.

 

[Lord-Summerisle]

From the outside the fire service or construction team will have access to "Cherry Picker" platforms which can get a person up to view from the outside.
Drones may be a possibility.
The Boston Dynamics "Spot" robot can be sent in with cameras - that'll either use remote control, or can be given the building's construction model and given a route to check.

 

[Hixee]

How do you think this making safe could work? If the building is too dangerous to be entered and at risk of eminent collapse. Will the current burned structure be strengthened to allow investigators in or will the unsafe parts be demolished before investigators are allowed in?

I think back propping is probably the most likely answer, or a methodical and careful deconstruction. @Lord-Summerisle's suggestions of drones or robots is also possible, but I don't really have much experience in this area, I have to admit. From the building services perspective, most of it will relate to isolating the incoming utilities (usually automatic in a fire, but checked/done by the fire crews on arrival at the site) and making sure the relevant sub-systems are isolated.

The 'first responders' from the fire brigade and the investigators have different remits in this sort of situation. Currently the fire service are saying they won't enter the building as they think it is structurally unsafe (and therefore a danger to the fire crews), but this is a judgement call on the day/in the moment based on their experience - it's not like they bring a structural engineer to the incident with them to assess it on the fly.

Post event (probably several days after at least), once everything is under control from an emergency response perspective, they will have time to do a more thorough assessment. This will also account for the thermal relaxation of the structure and no more fire hoses blasting tons of water all over the place - meaning the situation is hopefully a little more stable. It may be at that point that they decide they can safely enter the structure and can start some other remediation works.

In terms of trying to find the remains - in a situation as severe as this it's fairly rare that they just go at it with a wrecking ball (site material recycling/reuse/contamination requirements generally prevent this these days - if you've seen any building being demolished in the last few years you'll have seen they're fairly methodical/meticulous with it), so I would possibly expect them to tread carefully during the initial periods to try and find what they can.

Overall - this will be a very specific task for this very specific situation (and I don't know the first thing about the legalities of Sweden, albeit expect they're not far off the rest of Europe), so I will be interested myself to see how this develops over time.

 

[Christian]

How do you think this making safe could work? If the building is too dangerous to be entered and at risk of eminent collapse. Will the current burned structure be strengthened to allow investigators in or will the unsafe parts be demolished before investigators are allowed in?

Also does potentially searching for human remains affect this process? For example, will they avoid any demolition before human remains are found?

I'm just asking out of curiosity of how it usually is handled at construction sites.

I guess I have already gotten answers to this. According to this article, it's pretty much a combo of all the methods @Hixee mentioned.



After 80 hours, the fire is still buring. On Tuesday night, the supporting roof beams started collapsing. Right now 3/9 roof beams have collapsed. Most of the building is off limits. The fireservices have brought in a big crane to start removing burned waste through holes in the roof. This is both to better reach the burning fires and to remove fuel from the fires. Currently wooden structural elements is what is fueling the fire. They are planning to dismantle the roof from the outside, to ensure that the building is safe to enter. Other parts will need to be propped up to not collapse. When the building is safe to enter the police will take over the investigation. The police spokesman says that dismantling the building will of course negatively affect their investigation but he has full trust in the fire services knowing what to do to ensure their safety. There is currently no plan as to when the fire will be extinguished.

It seems like they are going for a combo of controlled demolition/removal together with propping up other parts in the hope to allow humans to get in to search and investigate. They do not mention robots or drones.

 

[Dar]

Confirmation of sorts from Andreas Andersen that the missing person lost their life.

https://reflections.liseberg.se/thank-you-for-all-the-kind-messages/

Thank you for all the kind messages over the last few days.

I can speak for everyone working at Liseberg, that we are shocked and deeply saddened by the fire at Oceana on February 12th, 2024.

With the fire, we lost a most-loved colleague of ours. And all our thoughts are with his family, and everyone who was part of his life.

There are many who wonder, what happens now? The simple answer is that we don’t know. Right now, our focus is not on the material damage, but on the people affected by the fire.

At the same time, I can promise that we will look forward with determination and hope. We will get through this, together.

As if losing years of work wasn't already gutting enough, to lose a member of the team as well must be devastating.
Slides and steel are replaceable, but humans aren't.


I hope there's some kind of memorial to them somewhere either in Oceana 2.0, or in Liseberg proper

 

[Esther7]

Confirmation of sorts from Andreas Anderson that the missing person lost their life.

https://reflections.liseberg.se/thank-you-for-all-the-kind-messages/


As if losing years of work wasn't already gutting enough, to lose a member of the team as well must be devastating.
Slides and steel are replaceable, but humans aren't.


I hope there's some kind of memorial to them somewhere either in Oceana 2.0, or in Liseberg proper

What sad news, so sorry about that.

 

[cookie]

Liseberg, in coordination with the victim’s family, have gone out and stated that the deceased person likely is Patrik Gillholm, a construction consultant on the Oceana project and former project manager at Liseberg between 2016 and 2019. Police haven’t been able to confirm the identity of the found body as of yet, but Gillholm has been reported missing since Monday’s fire. Gillholm is survived by his wife and three children.

Patrik Gillholm befaras ha dött i branden på Oceana

Har saknats sedan branden bröt ut i måndags.

www.gp.se

In a council meeting earlier today, the park confirmed that Oceana will be rebuilt, but given that they haven’t been able to assess the full extent of the damage as of yet, there’s no set timeline in place.

Liseberg: Oceana ska byggas upp igen

Liseberg ska bygga upp badanläggningen Oceana igen, enligt ett pressmeddelande.

www.sydsvenskan.se

 

[Christian]

I have still not gotten used to seeing Oceana like this everyday. It's truly a sad sight. Here is a drone video of it.

 

[Trax]

It still feels surreal to see Oceana in that state.

 

[Christian]

An update on what has happened around Oceana. Two weeks ago on the 21/2 Liseberg held a memorial for Oceana in Luna Park. A bunch of Liseberg bunnies were there offering hugs, the big carousel was open and a lot of sombre staff members were present handing out bunny plush toys. It was overall a very cute event which attracted a couple hundred people, a lot of media, Liseberg employees, construction crews and firefighters. People came to lay flowers and light candles. Luna Park was truly beautiful. On a side note, I was the first to enter and when reaching Luna Park 4 bunnies came for a group hug.

Regarding Oceana itself, the sign has been removed off the building. Light clearance work has started while the investigation is ongoing. The building has fared better than originally thought, most of the support and technical spaces are intact. The city has committed to rebuilding it. Various financing and accounting work has already started. The builder has paused paying all subcontractors and threatened with potential legal action based on the investigation findings.

 

[ECG]

Google translation of today's press release:

​

​

​

Press release - 4 April 2024​

The material damage after the fire at Oceana amounts to nearly 500 million

On February 12, 2024, Liseberg's new water world was hit by a devastating fire in which an employee tragically lost his life. The fire also caused extensive material damage. The extent of the damage has been uncertain in economic terms, until now. In connection with the Liseberg Group's quarterly report, a first cost estimate is now established, which means that the project is written down by SEK 484 million.

The write-down is based on the first investigations of the fire and its consequences.

- The damage is in a way immeasurable considering that we lost a friend and colleague in the fire. It is a loss we will never be able to replace. At the same time, we need to think ahead and then the estimation of the material damage is a step on the way towards a possible reconstruction, says Andreas Andersen.

The material damage is extensive but falls short of the initial estimates, which spoke of very extensive damage. The estimate means that the write-down requirement is half as large as first feared.

The estimated write-down of SEK 484 million will now be reflected in the Liseberg Group's accounting and remaining forecasts for the year. There remains, however, certain reservations that the amount may be adjusted as demolition, clean-up and planning for possible reconstruction takes place.

- Simplified, we can now state that there are three central main elements in a possible reconstruction of Oceana: A new attraction tower, a new roof structure and new rides. In addition, a number of fire technical adjustments will probably be made, based on what the ongoing investigations result in, says Andreas Andersen.

Large parts of the basement, the pool facility, technical installations and the entire low-rise part facing Mölndalsvägen with changing rooms, restaurants, shops and foyer have so far been found to be more or less undamaged.

No formal decision on a rebuilding of Oceana from Liseberg's board has yet been made. NCC and Liseberg have worked together in a first investigative reconstruction step to produce a project plan, including proposed budget and timetable, for a possible completion of Oceana. This plan is expected to be completed in the spring and form the basis for further decisions and possible contracting.

 

[Christian]

A pretty good and explanatory video with the CEO of Liseberg regarding the Oceana tragedy. Sadly it's in Swedish/Danish.