Rogers Place arena's winter garden making progress

It's little more thana steel skeleton now, butby fall 2016 the mainentrance to Edmontons new arena will bloom into a winter garden splendour.

That's how officials with the Katz Group describe thesignature feature of the Rogers Place arena.

These (renderings) speak to the capacity that has been designed into the winter garden to hold all sorts of different types of events ... and we think it is a really unique space, we think that it will be one of the calling cards, if you will, of the arena district,said the KatzGroup's Bob Black.

The 24,000-square-footpedway, which will connect Rogers Place with the MacEwan LRT station over 104th Avenue, will be its own destination, Black said.

Its also a place whereEdmontonianswill come and celebrate magical moments, where they will attend sports and arts and cultural events," said Black.

Rick Daviss, the citys executive director for the project, said he is excited with the progress.

I sit and kind of pinch myself from time to time thinking that its only since Feb.11 of last year we knew for sure we were going to build this and to see how much has been accomplished since then is tremendouslygratifying,Davisssaid.

The Rogers Place arena is scheduled to open in time for the Oilers' 2016-2017 season.