News

Ahead of schedule and looking good. That's the best way to describe the progress of construction of Saputo Stadium, the $15-million soccer facility at Olympic Park that will be the home of the Montreal Impact in 2008.

Impact players, coaches and team officials - including Richard Legendre, the former minister of tourism, recreation and sports who is the team's newly appointed executive vice-president in charge of the stadium - yesterday toured the site where the 13,500-seat facility has quickly taken shape since the official groundbreaking April 17. They were impressed.

"Pleased? Very," said Impact head coach Nick De Santis, whose team faces the Rochester Raging Rhinos tonight

Impact coach Nick De Santis (centre) and players get a look at stadium that will be their new home.

JOHN KENNEY, THE GAZETTE

(8 p.m., SRC, FSW, CJAD Radio-800) in the second-to-last regular-season game to be played at Claude Robillard Stadium, home to the team since its inaugural season in 1993.

"They've done a lot," De Santis added, eyeing the grandstands on the south and east side of the stadium. "We didn't expect it to be this far along at this point.

"They're saying by the end of November, everything will be done, so yeah, this is very exciting. I can tell you it's going to be beautiful, that's for sure."

Impact president Joey Saputo expects "delivery" from Montreal-based Broccolini Construction Inc., by the end of the calendar year, with the club planning to move from its current administrative offices on Langelier Blvd. to the new stadium by Jan. 1. All will be ready for the team to start play on the grass surface in April.

"I'm very happy with the way it's progressing," Saputo said. "Work is a little ahead of schedule. There have little glitches, but none have been major. We're excited it will be completed soon."

Saputo's family is primarily bearing the cost of the project.

Lino Saputo, Joey's father and chairman of family-owned Saputo Inc., the largest dairy processor in Canada and one of the largest cheese producers in North America, personally donated $7.5 million. The balance has been secured through a bank loan guaranteed by the family.

Upon his arrival at the site yesterday, Lino Saputo's first words to his son were: "It looks very nice, Joey."

Situated behind Olympic Stadium and bordered to the northeast by Sherbrooke and Viau Sts., the work on the main stadium, which will have 24 corporate boxes (already sold out), team rooms, concessions and administrative headquarters, is the first part of the three-phase, soccer-specific project.

Phase 2 will be a practice field on land the Olympic Installations Board currently leases as a practice area to the Canadian Football League's Alouettes, which the Impact hopes will be ready for its use next June.

Phase 3 calls for an indoor soccer facility built in the parking lot near the Maurice Richard Arena, but it depends on successful negotiations with the City of Montreal, which owns the land in question.

Saputo Inc. spearheaded a partnership with Hydro-Québec and the provincial government in 2001 to operate the franchise as a non-profit ownership group, and the new facility will be managed by a non-profit organization.

Players and team officials were greeted by scores of construction workers at the site yesterday. After posing for photographs, the players donned hard hats for a 30-minute walkabout before lunch with the workers.

"I'm impressed. I think everybody who comes to the stadium will be," said veteran defender/midfielder Patrick Leduc. "We definitely got a feeling of what it's going to be like sitting in the stands today. There's already a soccer atmosphere here. I can imagine the lines on the field. You can see right away that it's been conceived for soccer and that's great."

Plans for a new stadium for the team were first announced in May 2005. Originally, it was to built on vacant land in the Technoparc, north of the Bonaventure Expressway overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

Groundbreaking was delayed because OIB officials approached Saputo with the idea of building at Olympic Park instead of the Technoparc, and serious discussions began in March of last year.

Saputo yesterday said the new stadium being ahead of schedule is proof that due diligence was done.

"A lot of people questioned how come it took us so long back then, but what's important was that once you do start construction, you want to be able to complete it as quickly as possible," Saputo said. "It was important for us to do the proper work before starting the job so that once we started, we knew exactly what direction we were going in."

rphillips@thegazette.canwest.com

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007