The MTK Sports Park on Kerepesi Road will be heated with geothermal energy

From the first sod being turned to the handover of the keys, Bayer Construct Zrt is responsible for the construction of the MTK Sportpark. Work began in the spring of 2023 and is now in full swing. In response to questions from our newspaper, the operational managers of Bayer Construct provided us with numerous details about the project.

The facility will serve thousands of people

The complex, to be built on an almost 100,000 square metre site on Kerepesi Road in Budapest, will include an indoor garage, outdoor courts, a multifunctional hall and even solar parks.

It is a major task to build such a large ensemble, and in the light of the challenges posed by limited human resources, the development and application of prefabrication technologies is becoming increasingly important, an area in which Bayer Construct Zrt. has gained considerable merit and experience in recent years. The present facility is a mule structure: in addition to prefabricated pillars, beams and bark panel slabs, traditional monolithic construction is also used," the project manager said.

It is a complex task to create a centre of this size, with very different built elements. The project, which has been put together with considerable expertise, consists of several buildings. The multifunctional "B" main building, with a surface area of approximately 14,800 m² , can be used for fairs, events and, above all, sporting events and training matches, as its capacity of 4,900 people makes it suitable for a wide range of competitions.

The hall building can be divided into two parts: a "large hall" and a "small hall", depending on the needs, with service areas (changing rooms, water blocks, canteens, cloakrooms, storage rooms, storerooms, medical rooms) and rooms for the different departments.

The steel structure of the main building will be fabricated, assembled and shelled by Orha Művek Zrt..

The 2,880 m² elevated urban plaza building "G" will have covered parking under the entrance communal space; while the roughly 110 m² building "D" will be constructed as an economic service building for the outdoor courts and park maintenance facilities. Several outdoor project elements will be built: in addition to two grass football pitches, there will also be a number of parking areas, paths, playgrounds, public parks and recreational areas for the use of sportsmen and visitors.

Special solutions, pioneering technologies

Similar to the Zenit by Bayer investment in Zugló, the buildings here will also be heated using geothermal and thermal water. To this end, the contractor's staff will construct production and reinjection wells 1,300 metres deep using inclined drilling technology (the thermal water used for heating will be reinjected into the same water base from which it was extracted, from the water extraction point – through inclined drilling – at a distance of nearly 1 kilometre, thus ensuring that the wells do not interfere with each other).

In addition to the geothermal system, there will also be two solar farms, one on the flat roof of the steel-framed part of building B and the other in the parking lot. To ensure that the complex is sustainable with the lowest possible environmental impact, island energy will be used: a high-capacity energy storage battery will be installed on the roof to store the excess energy generated by the solar panels.

"It is a great pleasure for us that the utilization of thermal water as a renewable energy source is gaining ground in Hungary, as our country has particularly rich geological resources in thermal water" - said József Murányi, general project manager, adding that the design and implementation of the entire chain of the heating system with geothermal energy is also part of their undertaking. Geothermal wells are a challenge in themselves, as they need to be drilled to a depth of more than 1 kilometre, and although the country is well mapped geologically, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what will be encountered at a given drilling point.

In the MTK Sports Park, both the production and the injection wells are being drilled using inclined drilling technology. This is necessary because the wellheads are located next to each other on the surface, but in order to avoid the wells interfering with each other at their bottom depths, they must be spaced at a distance of almost 1 km, which is ensured by the inclined drilling technology: the deep drilling specialists start inclining the wells from a depth of 200-300 metres using a specially designed tool.

Construction on schedule

The foundation stone was laid in June 2023, and in the six months since then, drilling and lining of the thermal production well and the injection well have been completed. This will be followed by the testing and qualification of the wells and then the construction of the surface thermal system can begin. In addition, the reinforced concrete structure 90% has been completed, demonstrating the efficiency of the contractor Bayer Construct:

• the construction of the steel roof structure is underway, which is unique in that it will be realised with steel trusses spanning 50 metres;
• build the infill masonry and
• insulation against soil moisture, and
• utility works, such as the installation of the large diameter ROCLA stormwater buffer tanks, are proceeding apace.

Building B, as the largest and most complex building, is the most important task during the construction, as it is the most labour-intensive project element. The roof structure of the hall, which will be divided into two sections, will be made of steel lattice girders weighing approximately 15 tonnes, set on precast reinforced concrete pillar frames, and the erection and installation of these has already started (see photos <a href="photos" attached to our ).