Hard hats and orange cones have been a frequent sight at B.C. Place for well over a year amid a flurry of construction.
Now, with a month to go before the FIFA World Cup comes to Vancouver, the stadium's facelift — including the installation of a grass playing surface — is nearly complete.
“I'm very pleased to share that final touches are being completed on our stadium upgrades and renovations, and that we continue to remain on time and on budget," Chris May, the stadium's general manager, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The World Cup kicks off in Mexico City and Guadalajara on June 11.
This year's tournament will be the biggest ever, with 48 nations taking part. A total of 104 games will be played in 16 host cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Seven will be staged at B.C. Place, starting with a group-stage battle between Australia and Turkey on June 13.
Canada kicks off its schedule June 12 against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto before heading to Vancouver for its two remaining group stage games.
BMO Field, which will be renamed Toronto Stadium during the tournament, had a successful dress rehearsal Saturday when Inter Miami beat Toronto FC 4-2 in Major League Soccer play.
Some 17,000 grandstand seats were used for the first time as a record crowd of 44,828 took in the action. The addition of the extra sections was required to lift BMO Field past the 40,000 minimum capacity required by FIFA.
Six World Cup games will be played at the lakefront stadium, which has undergone a $146-million renovation. The city paid for $123 million of the upgrades, while Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment -- which manages the city-owned facility -- put in $23 million.
Work was still underway at B.C. Place on Friday, with blacked-out fences shielding onlookers from much of the activity. Peeking through the building's vast windows, people donning hard hats and fluorescent vests could be seen walking the concourse.
Outside, large metal barriers were being erected around two parking lots across the street.
Last June, the B.C. government pegged the provincial cost of hosting at between $532 million and $624 million, including a $196-million upgrade of the 55,000-seat stadium.
First opened in 1983, B.C. Place is no stranger to major events. The opening and closing ceremonies for the 2010 Olympics were held there, and the venue played host to the 2015 Women's World Cup.
Taylor Swift also played the final three shows of her Eras Tour there in December 2024.
In recent months, three new elevators have been added, a new scoreboard has been installed, and locker rooms have been upgraded. And a temporary grass playing surface is replacing the venue's artificial turf.
Trey Rogers and his team from Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee were tasked with figuring out how to grow grass inside the stadium — and at the 15 other venues that will host World Cup games this summer.
Vancouver's field is looking good, said the turfgrass expert.
“I think the whole thing is in fantastic shape," he said. "It is very apparent to me that the citizens of Vancouver are really into telling the world, ‘Let's show them what we can build.’ And every indication leads me to believe that it's going to be successful.”
Rogers and his team first started talking about the World Cup playing surfaces back in 2020, and have since overcome a variety of challenges in their bid to create similar playing experiences across all 16 different venues.
Getting some products and parts into the Mexican host cities took more time than expected. Many of the American buildings, generally used for football instead of soccer, had to undergo infrastructure changes, including the removal of 10 rows of seats at the stadium in Kansas City.
Five of the venues are in warm climates and will use Bermuda grass. The other 11 — including the domed stadiums such as B.C. Place — require a different species, a mix of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass.
Ample research went into determining exactly how much of each would produce the best, most durable playing surface, Rogers said.
“One of the students, her job was to determine what the ratio needed to be, and this was part of her PhD dissertation, to come up with that ratio," he explained. "And it ended up being an 84 per cent Kentucky Bluegrass, 16 per cent perennial ryegrass, seeded at that rate
"And the whole idea behind it was that we could get something up fast, rooted quickly, but would develop a very strong base.”
The turf team — composed of professors, research assistants, graduate students and even Rogers' son — gave instructions to sod farms across North America that grew the grass on plastic trays.
Vancouver's grass comes from Bos Sod in the nearby Fraser Valley and is being installed into a 14-inch-deep surface where the roots can take hold.
Grow lights will be used to keep it alive throughout the tournament — a stark departure from when Rogers worked on the field for Detroit's Pontiac Superdome at the 1994 World Cup.
Back then, the grass was "a fully functioning plant essentially in a pot," but "quite staggering" technological advances over the past 32 years allow for a more natural environment this time around, Rogers said.
“These indoor systems, I think we're in good shape. I think that our research has provided them with some good data," he said. "The lighting systems that they have are a state of the art.
"And we’re going to provide a world-class playing surface, but it’s not something that's just going to get better and better and better. I think we’re going to try to stay at a certain level the whole time.”
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
