The corner of the ice is visible now.
Crews poured the first concrete slab on the event level at Scotia Place in July, and for the first time you can stand in the building and see where the rink will sit.
It opens in fall 2027, which means the season starting this October is the Flames' last full one in the Saddledome.
Four teams are moving, not one
The Flames get the attention, but Scotia Place inherits four CSEC clubs.
The Hitmen have played WHL hockey out of the Saddledome since 1995. The Roughnecks have been there since the NLL franchise started in 2001. The Wranglers moved in when CSEC brought its AHL affiliate to Calgary in 2022.
All four move together. So do the season ticket holders, the arena staff, the vendors and the routines that come with a building four decades old.
The Saddledome has been the Flames' home since 1983. They won the Stanley Cup in it in 1989. It is currently the second-oldest arena in the NHL.
What got done in July
The roof is closing. The final roof layer is now in place on the west side, and steel installation progressed on the northeast quadrant. The building is being sealed west to east.
The upper bowl is finished in precast. Every precast concrete section in the upper main bowl is installed. That's where most fans will sit, and the structure is done.
The skin is going on. The exterior building envelope advanced along the north side, around the northeast corner, and now extends to the east. Aluminum window framing and glass went in on the south side.
The restaurants have a frame. Structural steel framing continued on the north restaurants and the food hall.
Why those milestones matter
Sealing the roof and closing the envelope is what lets work move inside and stop depending on weather. In Calgary, getting that done before winter is the difference between a productive season and a slow one.
The upper bowl precast is the same story. Those sections get craned in from outside, so finishing them clears the site and lets interior fit-out start behind them.
The first event-level slab is the beginning of the floor system the ice plant sits under. Everything below the seats gets built before anything above them gets finished. In practical terms, they're building down before they build in.
A year of the building going up
The City published a month-by-month look at the last twelve months, and read together it shows how quickly this changed once it cleared the ground.
July 2025 — More than 1,000 cubic metres of concrete poured for the first portion of the mezzanine and club level.
August 2025 — Mezzanine concrete reached 25 per cent completion.
September 2025 — The main concourse began to take shape.
October 2025 — Steel installation began and the structure started to rise above ground level.
November 2025 — Main concourse steel wrapped the south and west sides of the main arena.
December 2025 — Upper-tier steel installation began on the south side.
January 2026 — Precast concrete installation began, offering the first glimpse of the future seating bowl. Work also began on the 6 Street S.E. Underpass.
February 2026 — Upper seating areas continued to take form.
March 2026 — The first roof truss was installed.
April 2026 — Exterior building envelope work started, along with the first cauldron panels on the south side.
May 2026 — Crews began raising 14 Avenue S.E. to improve future accessibility to the public plazas, and the first structures went in to support the underpass.
June 2026 — Steel was installed for the ESSO Community Arena main entrance, and the steel structure was fully connected around the main bowl.
Twelve months ago the building didn't exist above ground.
What Flames fans get
Capacity is 18,400 for hockey, with 52 executive suites.
That suite count is the part worth understanding. Modern NHL buildings are designed around premium and club seating, loge boxes, clubs behind the glass, and spaces that don't exist in a 1983 arena at all. The Saddledome was built for the 1988 Olympics and renovated around, never rebuilt for how the league monetizes a building now.
Scotia Place also comes with north restaurants and a food hall, indoor and outdoor plazas and a parkade, meaning the experience is designed to start before the puck drops rather than at the turnstile.
The building stands 32 metres from street level to the top of the roof, which the City compares to ten stacked city buses.
And the concerts
This is the argument that gets made least often and matters a lot.
Edmonton's Rogers Place opened in 2016, and Calgary has spent a decade watching tours route north. A city of 1.6 million has been working with a building that predates most of the touring infrastructure acts now require.
Scotia Place is being built as an event centre rather than a hockey rink, and the City's own framing is that it's a landmark destination for game nights and concerts both.
Whether it ends up among the best buildings in the league is a question for the people who eventually use it. What's certain is that it will be the newest, and the standard for NHL arenas built since 2020 is considerably higher than what the Saddledome was designed to.
There's a second rink in there
The ESSO Community Arena is a separate facility in the complex, and its main entrance got its steel in June.
That's the piece most Calgarians will actually use. Minor hockey, ringette, figure skating, public skates. The Government of Alberta contributed $30 million toward it.
If your kid plays, this is the part of the project that changes your Saturday mornings rather than your Saturday nights.
The cauldron panels
The April milestone is the part people will notice from the street.
The exterior carries a textured flame motif meant to evoke a home fire, which the City says will be amplified when lit at night, rising from white glacial forms that define the lower portion of the building.
The design draws on fire, ice, land and air, and the City has described it as influenced by the ancestral land of Indigenous Peoples and by a shared purpose of gathering.
The first cauldron panels went on the south side in April, and the envelope has been working its way around since.
If you're heading downtown before 2027
The 6 Street S.E. Underpass is going in alongside the arena.
Work began in July along the south side of the CPKC rail corridor between 11 Avenue and 12 Avenue S.E., where crews are widening the roadway, improving sidewalks and crossings, and installing new traffic signals and streetlights. On the north side, the foundation for a stormwater lift station is complete.
Work continues along 9 Avenue S.E. on roadway, utility and drainage upgrades, and on the bridge foundations that will carry the future rail bridge over the underpass.
Expect intermittent lane restrictions and road closures across the district through 2026. The Culture and Entertainment District access map has real-time information, and it's worth checking before any game or event at the Saddledome or the Stampede grounds.
Where things stand
Ground broke July 22, 2024. Foundations started January 2025. The City says the project is on schedule and on budget, with more than 800 people on site daily.
The Saddledome comes down after the new building opens, with the Government of Alberta covering the demolition.
The City posts monthly construction updates with timelapse footage. Sign up at calgary.ca/ScotiaPlace or visit scotiaplace.com. Questions go to 311 or ScotiaPlace@calgary.ca.
Sources
July progress at Scotia Place — City of Calgary, August 18, 2026
Scotia Place — City of Calgary
Scotia Place construction — City of Calgary
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