Marlins Stadium Construction In Home Stretch
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – There are just seven games left for the Florida Marlins and their home at Sun Life Stadium. Once the final out is made on September 28th, the Florida Marlins will be no more.
"It's going very well," said Claud Delomare of Ballpark Development. "We hit the 80 percent tile, so we've only got seven months remaining."
The team will move into the team's new ballpark in Little Havana after this season. The team will also don a new name at their new ballpark when it becomes the Miami Marlins.
Currently, construction workers are trying to complete the exterior skin of the decking operations and to start installing the white roof membrane on the stadium's retractable roof.
According to the Marlins, the curtain wall glass, metal paneling system and art glass at the base of the building will be finished this year.
- Click here to see a slideshow of the current state of the new Marlins Stadium.
The team said the interior walls are more than 95 percent constructed and the majority of kitchen equipment has been installed into the concession stands. Perhaps the best news for Marlins fans is the air conditioning system is also operational.
The Marlins will have quite a reputation to live up to in their new stadium. The team won two World Series championships while at Sun Life Stadium, though in recent years, the stadium has looked more like a ghost town as the Marlins play declined.
The team said the $600 million-plus stadium is on-time and on-budget, which is just what taxpayers in Miami and Miami-Dade County wanted to hear.
"We continue to have more local workers than we ever would have imagined," said Marlins president David Samson. "And we go around and talk to them. They're so proud of the work they're doing and we're so proud of them."
All of the construction and work leads up to Opening Day 2012.
"On April 4th when we open this ballpark; you're going to see the result of what it means to live in a place where a county and a city and a team and it's workers can get together and build something terrific."
