Calgary’s event centre project is taking shape after its first full year of construction, with more details on the fan experience to be revealed in the new year.
City officials have dubbed 2025 a “milestone year” at the construction site for Scotia Place, the city’s $926 million arena project in Victoria Park, with the steel structure starting to rise from the site.
More than 308,000 cubic metres of dirt was removed from the site to make way for 41,000 cubic metres of concrete to be poured. The building also required 9,000 metric tonnes of rebar and 5,000 km of electrical wiring.
More than 1,100 structural piles were installed as part of foundation work, which included the placement of columns, stairwells and elevator cores.
“We’re now back up to street level and the super structure of steel is starting to go up very quickly,” said Bob Hunter, the City of Calgary’s lead on the project.
“We started on the south side of the building and we are slowly moving around to the west in a circular fashion.”
According to Hunter, the intent is for crews to have a “big push” in 2026 to get the building sealed by the end of the year to begin interior work, including the main spectator space, the community arena, three restaurants and a food hall, the concourse and public gathering spaces.
There are currently around 300 workers on site, a number that will grow to 1,200 once interior work begins, Hunter said.
“The exterior cladding, which will enclose the building, we’ll say it’s on its way,” Hunter told Global News.
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“In the next few months you’ll start to see the walls on the south side of the building start to go up and all of that assists us in getting to a closed or controlled environment.”
Scotia Place, on the corner of 12 Avenue and Olympic Way S.E., is expected to seat 18,400 people for hockey games and up to 20,000 for concerts. It also includes a 1,000-seat community arena, indoor and outdoor plaza, and a 450-stall parkade.
The building, with a total budget of $1.2 billion, is set to open its doors in 2027 for the Calgary Flames season opener. However, Hunter said the hope is they could open the doors in time for the preseason that year.
Discussions around the fan experience are already underway at Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC), the organization that owns the Calgary Flames.
“We’re really looking at it uniquely in three different ways. There’s the in-bowl experience, which is what you get to do while you’re watching the game or the concert, and then there’s the concourse experience… and then there’s the outer bowl experience or the outside experience so things like the party before the party whether it’s a DJ or an outside activation with partners and sponsors,” said Lorenzo DeCicco, CSEC’s chief operating officer.
According to DeCicco, fans will get a peak behind the curtain at what to expect from Scotia Place in the new year, as CSEC is set to open the Calgary Flames Experience Centre at the Sunterra building down the street from the site.
The centre will include a model of the new building, and digital activations to show fans “what the future looks like” at Scotia Place, as well as a “red room” which will feature videos aimed at “charging up the C of Red.”
“As iconic as the Saddledome is, this is the future. We’re moving into a rocket ship of a building and something that all of Calgary will be proud of,” DeCicco said.
CSEC is also working on ways for fans to celebrate and say goodbye to the Saddledome, which will be replaced by Scotia Place once it opens.
For the event centre block itself, the city is contributing $515 million in upfront costs. $40 million will be paid upfront by CSEC, which will then pay $17 million in annual lease payments with one per cent compounding interest over 35 years.
It’s a deal Calgary’s new mayor, Jeromy Farkas, was highly critical of when it was signed, after the previous deal signed between the City of Calgary and CSEC in 2019 fell through in 2021 — a deal that Farkas also voted against as a city councillor.
“I was a critic of the funding model of the event centre but I fully recognize the need for this project, so it’s very exciting to see it proceed,” Farkas told reporters on Thursday.
“Obviously there’s no ability to revise that contract, nor would I be seeking to do so alongside my council.”
Farkas said he’s had constructive conversations with project management and Flames ownership about the project since he was elected in October.
“Just by virtue of keeping this on budget and on time, it’s been very impressive to see not just the steel emerging out of the hole but the actual team behind that,” he said.
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