March 4, 2026 CSI Electrical Contractors Slam Dunks ‘Once-in-A-Lifetime’ Intuit Dome Project
Bringing Light and Power to the Los Angeles Clippers’ Basketball Arena
The high-tech and high-profile Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. is a remarkable achievement of design and execution, and one that CSI Electrical Contractors Inc. (CSI) is extremely proud to have been a part of.
CSI, an MYR Group subsidiary, played a pivotal role in this “once-in-a-lifetime” stadium project built by the AECOM Hunt-Turner Joint Venture. CSI took on a large portion of the electrical construction for the project and their two and half years of outstanding execution earned industry recognition including several regional National Electrical Contractor’s Association (NECA) awards recognizing the team’s safety performance and project excellence.
Success on this project required seamless integration of complex electrical infrastructure, including energy-efficient lighting, advanced audiovisual systems, and state-of-the-art power distribution to support a high-demand, large-scale, all-electric venue.
CSI constructed and installed electrical power, lighting, lighting controls and life safety systems for the 1.4 million square-foot professional basketball arena. This effort required millions of feet of conduit and hundreds of millions of feet of wire to power a facility that seats more than 17,000 fans.
By integrating complex electrical infrastructure with the latest advances in lighting control and life safety technology, CSI played a key role in helping the arena achieve LEED Platinum certification, the highest level of certification for sustainable building design, construction, and operation.
The scale of the lighting scope alone was unusual, with more than 500 types of lighting fixtures and 81,000 parts and pieces, and many custom installations. CSI provided significant value engineering to that scope. The volume, complexity, and need for theatrical lighting made it an “unprecedented” effort to take on.
General Foreman Jamie Becerra said, “The project was challenging and extremely rewarding. Seeing this arena come together piece by piece was an experience I won’t forget.”
When planning the Intuit Dome, Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer envisioned an NBA arena unlike any other.
“You all, fans and players together, deserve the ultimate home court,” Ballmer said during the construction groundbreaking in 2021. “We want the comfort and convenience of home, but the energy, excitement and enthusiasm of being able to smell the leather on the ball as it’s moving around the court.” Prior to its opening, the Clippers shared a venue with the LA Lakers for 25 years.
Today, Intuit Dome is the most expensive basketball arena ever built and boasts five basketball courts, a practice facility and training center, the largest “Halo Board” (a double-sided scoreboard) in the world, and an outdoor plaza with bars, a restaurant and team store. It is outfitted with cutting-edge technology including cannons to shoot t-shirts to the loudest fans in the crowd, and power and lighting controls in each seat. The venue hosted the 2026 All-Star Game and will be one of the 2028 Olympics sites.
Sustainability was a core priority for this new arena. Other trade partners installed rooftop solar panels and battery storage to enable the facility to operate carbon-free and support its LEED-Platinum certification.
A Team Ready for Large-Scale Challenges
Given the project’s scale, estimating took the estimating department more than a month, and even more challenges lay ahead for CSI once construction was underway.
They set themselves up for success by assembling an extraordinary team with multiple project managers, project engineers, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and prefabrication managers and field supervisors, in addition to a dedicated lighting team to manage the large interior and exterior lighting packages. The lighting team performed quality checks as lighting components arrived to ensure all materials were accounted for throughout the process.
“The teamwork, from estimating, to operations and field, was something to behold. It also proved that with talent, focus, and determination there is very little that cannot be accomplished,” Vice President of Estimating Matt Johnson said.
Work management and collaboration software was integrated into the entire team’s processes which proved critical when customer-requested design changes mounted. Project Executive Jason Getty, who served as a project manager of record on the Intuit Dome, recalled that at one point during construction they were tracking more than 1,000 changes and thousands of requests for information. The software helped ensure everyone was working from the same, most updated information.
One particularly challenging change involved adding power to every seat in the stadium. The seating was being formed by a concrete manufacturing facility in Nevada, requiring CSI to coordinate the redesign quickly. Getty traveled to Nevada to demonstrate how the boxes would need to be embedded and mounted in the concrete so the seats could be powered in the best possible way. Despite tight timing, CSI communicated the needed changes and presented a solution just in time.
Collaboration Across Teams Results in Quality and Efficiency
The lighting group, prefabrication (pre-fab), programming, purchasing and field operations all collaborated extensively on this large endeavor. Their efforts contributed to quality and efficiency throughout the project.
Through extensive coordination internally and with the customer, CSI managed the sheer volume of lighting fixtures, provided significant value engineering for that scope, and was recognized for safely installing 3,600 DMX light fixtures over 100 feet high on the diagrid façade.
“With a goal of value engineering most of the light fixtures, we began work with the General Contractor and design team to help save the project money. We were able to meet the goal and then started the daunting task of fixture submittals, shop drawings, ordering fixtures, receiving fixtures, and getting those fixtures to the job site,” said Lighting Support Manager Steven Ashton.
Advanced controls were installed and all the lighting fixtures were connected to the control systems to meet California’s Title 24 energy efficiency standards and support the venue’s LEED Platinum certification.
Site Superintendent Joe Rabelo oversaw the installation and programming of the entire lighting package.
“The role required intense coordination with multiple trades, lighting designers, Jennifer Steinkamp (the artist), constant adaptation to design changes, and a dedicated team that supported everything from shop drawings to QA/QC,” Rabelo explained. “I’m grateful for the teamwork and collaboration that made this complex and high‑visibility scope such a success.”
The diagrid façade was a perfect example of how pre-fab contributed to the project’s overall success through faster, safer and more efficient installation. The pre-fab department assembled all the rhombus lights that could be assembled off-site: attaching lights to pieces of strut and installing cabling, labeling all pieces, testing and programming the lights, and packaging them clear identification of where those lights belonged in the diagrid. This ensured smooth installations.
That was just a portion of their work on Intuit Dome. There were 384 different pre-fab builds on the project and each of those could be a few items or hundreds or more. In each instance, they would assemble, label and pack everything in kits with all the essential parts, and stage materials until it was time to deliver them to the job site.
Keys to CSI’s Intuit Dome Success
For Getty, contributing to the success of a basketball arena like Intuit Dome was nothing short of a “once-in-a-lifetime achievement.”
CSI stayed on schedule throughout the very large project, adapted to changes and scope additions as they came, and performed the work with safety excellence.
The keys to their success included robust coordination between field staff and the BIM engineering/detailing team, assigning ownership and accountability over project scopes, and maintaining a focus on material procurement to identify any potential issues early and avoid delays.
Keeping safety at the forefront, and optimizing installations through prefabrication, CSI’s team worked more than a half million hours (518,236) during the project without any recordable incidents or lost-time incidents.
LA NECA Recognizes CSI’s Intuit Dome Accomplishments with Multiple Awards
CSI’s tremendous achievements on the Intuit Dome earned them four separate awards from Los Angeles County NECA in 2025.
“I am happy to say that we completed all façade lighting with zero incidents, which led us to earn the NECA Terry V. Perkins safety award for the project which is the highest available award for safety,” Rabelo said.
In addition to that honor, CSI earned an Electrical Excellence Award in the Institutional projects over $5 million category. Two team members earned individual awards: Getty was recognized with a Mike Sloan Award and Site Superintendent Jarrod Tiner received the Dennis Kelly Safety Award.
Speaking of the overall project, Ashton said, “With a strong project team, it all came together to form this fantastic monument. This truly was an epic experience to be a part of.”
“From the initial discussions of whether or not to pursue the project, through completion of the job, CSI was laser focused on doing it right or not doing it at all,” CSI Executive Vice President Andrew Soffa said. “The entire team worked tirelessly, from field to management and all the support departments. It was truly an inspiring team effort that I will forever be proud to have been a part of.”
The lead design firm and general contractor also earned multiple accolades for the project from Engineering News Record (ENR) including a Best Project in Sports/Entertainment award, an Excellence in Safety Award, and a Sustainability Award of Merit in 2025.
