SEATTLE — Three years and $1.15 billion later, Climate Pledge Arena is complete.
The arena is the first net-zero certified arena in the world.
Arena officials provided a sneak peek inside before the Seattle Kraken season opener Oct. 23.
Ken Johnsen, Climate Pledge Arena construction lead, called it "an engineering marvel."
The walls inside most arenas are bare. At Climate Pledge Arena, multiple walls include breath-taking art displays, one with rotating parts that make it appear like leaves falling when you walk by, and another that looks like the Seattle skyline from one angle, but the Kraken logo from another. There is also a "living wall" with live plants that has been dubbed "Instagram Alley."
Inside the team’s locker room, the Kraken logo is on the ceiling, not the floor, lest anybody breaks superstition by stepping on it.
Of course, if you up, you’ll still see the old Key Arena roof. Preserving that, may have been the biggest trick of them all. Crews had to install temporary steel columns to support the roof, along with a reinforcement structure. Eventually, the roof was attached to the new building.
"That was the most remarkable engineering feat in the history of the facility," Tim Leiweke, CEO Oak View Group, told KING 5. "We had 1,000 people here for our facility conference this week. That’s a huge topic, because the people who do this for a living, they’re like, how the heck did you do that?"
Right now, crews are setting up for the official inaugural concert Friday – Coldplay – who’ll play from a stage in the center of the floor. The Foo Fighters and Death Cab for Cutie performed at a soft opening on Tuesday.
Then they have about 12 hours to take that out and lay down the ice, so the Kraken can finally be released at their home arena on Saturday night.