Excavation starts on Roughriders' new Mosaic Stadium

It's not quite the "Big Dig" of Regina's Wascana Lake, but there's now a massive excavation hole where the new Mosaic Stadium is being built.

Kelly Scherr, director of major projects for the City of Regina, said it's about seven metres deep, soon to be about ten metres.

"We're looking at removing 300,000 cubic metres of soil and that's the equivalent of 112 Olympic size swimming pools," Scherr said.

The new stadium for the Saskatchewan Roughriders is scheduled to be ready for the 2017 CFL season.

Rider fan Jason Marshall watched the excavation on Wednesday. Marshall said he's eager for opening day of the new football stadium..

"It's going to be be nice to have," Marshall said. "We've have the other one - I don't know - for a hundred years? So this is gonna be nice."

Crews are expected to reach the bottom by the end of October. The soil is being trucked to low lying land just south of Regina.