Hey, remember back in April when it was revealed that the Atlanta Falcons‘ crazy new iris-style stadium roof was taking longer to build than expected, and team execs promised it would be ready for opening day in September? Well, about that:
The retractable roof of Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be in the closed position when the new Falcons stadium debuts next month and for an undetermined period of time beyond that, the CEO of Falcons parent company AMB Group said today.
Steve Cannon said construction delays have the project behind schedule on fully mechanizing the roof…
Cannon said he could not provide specifics on when the first event might be played with the roof open, although he said it would be at some point during the Falcons’ and Atlanta United’s 2017 seasons.
Well then! The Falcons season runs through December, so sounds like the roof will definitely be operational by then. Of course, Cannon said in April he expected the roof to be operational by the start of the season, not the end, so he has a bit of a record in the wishful-thinking department. I’m not going to mention that Montreal’s Olympic Stadium roof was supposed to retract at first, too, but never really managed it — oh whoops, looks like I just did.
If they can get it working by the time the Falcons start asking for a new stadium, then that has to be considered a (very) minor victory, no?
That’d be as crazy as spending tens of millions repairing a roof right before you tear down the building.
At least we got 5 years out of this roof repair in Seattle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdome
At least it’ll look pretty….
I forget, why does Arthur Blank need welfare again?
It’s easier to be rich when you can make the public pay your bills.
It both opens and closes, but it is not automated at this point.