Expo erects security wall on Burnell St.
May 18, 2015 – Napa Valley Expo’s new $85,000 security wall is up and ready to do its job starting with next week’s BottleRock music festival.
Fair directors ordered the wall along Burnell Street after the previous barrier to viewing music acts from off-site — a building housing nonprofit food vendors — was damaged in the August earthquake and torn down.
The Expo contracted for a wall designed by Napa architect and inventor David Horobin, who has devised an H-Forms system billed as faster and cheaper than conventional concrete blocks.
Interlocking forms of expanded polystyrene are filled with concrete and covered with layers of stucco. The wall is anchored by piers that are sunk 5 feet into the ground.
The Expo’s new wall stretches for 360 feet south along Burnell Street from Fourth Street, opposite the VINE’s Transit Center. This barrier will prevent outsiders from viewing acts on the Plaza Stage during BottleRock, which starts May 29.
The Expo originally ordered an 8-foot wall, but subsequently agreed to lower it by a half-foot, Horobin said.
As of Monday, the wall was at 7 feet, needing only a cap, Horobin said. Workers were crafting columns out of polystyrene as an aesthetic touch, he said.
The final stucco coating will be colored “mossy gray.” The wall’s street-facing surface will be covered with a clear anti-graffiti paint, he said.
Expo officials estimate the earthquake caused $4.6 million in damage to the fairgrounds. Two exhibit halls were torn down, with repairs necessary on several other buildings.