Man, the summer went by too quickly, didn’t it?

The Calgary Flames have already played their final two pre-season games at the Scotiabank Saddledome. They will hit the ice for their final home opener on Oct. 1 – that’s one week away! And as the final 42 regular season dates at the Saddledome tick away, a small army will be toiling inside Scotia Place – a block to the north – to get it ready for a year from now.

Since we’re at the end of the summer, let’s dive into all the progress made over the last couple weeks… and all the progress we’ve seen over the summer in terms of Scotia Place construction. Because the difference between May 3 and Sept. 20 is huge.

This week:

Two weeks ago:

May 3:

The de facto front door of Scotia Place, the southwest entrance, has come a long way since May. And while the bones of the structure have been in place for awhile – it was the first side to have its steel up, the first to get its building envelope up, and the first to start getting its exterior costing on – we’re starting to see finishes going on.

And by that I mean: the glass is up on the main entrance!

Add in a bit more exterior polishes and some public art, and this is the view you’ll walk up to in 2027.

This week:

Two weeks ago:

The view from May:

We haven’t seen dramatic progress over the last little bit in the northwest corner – some little things here and there, but the heavy lifting is going on elsewhere – but this corner has come a long way since May. We can no longer see the sky through the walls, for example.

This week:

Two weeks ago:

The view from May:

On the northeast corner: the parkade keeps progressing onward and upward, they’ve added some panelling onto the building envelope, and they’re continuing to work (on the right side of these photos) on the structure for the food hall entrance.

Meanwhile, here’s a slightly different angle of the parkade progress, also featuring a big crane and the Saddledome, way in the background…

The parkade is one of three big things that probably need to be finished for us to declare the exterior effectively finished. It’s on its way.

This week:

Two weeks ago:

The view from May:

Four and a half months ago, this side didn’t even have steel framework up. Now? The steel is done, the building envelope is done (so the bowl structure itself has its sides fully enclosed), the structural steel for the roof is up and the decking is expected to be done in a few weeks (which will fully enclose the main arena bowl structure), and the various cranes in the first photo are working on installing big steel beams to enclose the below-grade ESSO Community Rink and facilitate completion of both that rink and the ground-level plaza above it.

This photo is a nice angle of the south side of the building – hey look, glass! – and a bad angle to see the steel beam installation. As of the weekend, it looked about halfway done.

Long story short: things continue to progress in bits and pieces every few weeks, but this thing has come together really rapidly over the off-season.