City of Edmonton gives updated timeline on Northlands Coliseum demolition
The end is near for the old Northlands Coliseum.
Demolition work on the former home of the Edmonton Oilers is ongoing, with the City of Edmonton completing site preparation over the summer. The next step in the process is identifying and removing hazardous materials, which has been underway for the past few months.
However, even as work to tear down the rink continues, onlookers won’t be able to see much difference. The building, which opened in 1974, still looks largely the same as it has for the past decade, sitting dormant in the heart of northeast Edmonton ever since the Oilers abandoned the venue for the newly built Rogers Place in 2016.
It won’t be long until people will start to see noticeable deconstruction work take place on the historic arena. The City of Edmonton told Offside that the process of actually tearing down Northlands Coliseum is scheduled to take place in spring 2027.
“Work on the Coliseum site is progressing; the construction manager is overseeing initial site setup, safety measures, and preliminary hazardous materials abatement,” said Jesse Banford, the director of the city’s facility infrastructure delivery, in a statement. “Around the building, scaffolding and stair towers have been set up to support safe access to work areas.
“The deconstruction, which will include publicly visible major structural work, is currently scheduled to begin in spring 2027 and is anticipated to be completed in early 2028.”
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If everything goes as scheduled, Northlands Coliseum will see its time in Edmonton come to an end after 54 years. The City of Edmonton added that site redevelopment is scheduled to continue into 2029.
This will conclude a decade-long saga that saw the fate of the arena up in the air before demolition was ultimately decided. In 2016, following the Oilers’ exit, Northlands initially proposed an $85 million plan to transform the building into a multi-level ice facility in collaboration with Hockey Canada.
Those plans fell apart in 2017, after it was revealed that the price tag to undergo such a transformation would be more expensive than building a new facility from scratch.Ā
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The City of Edmonton took over control of the building on Jan. 1, 2018, and the venue permanently ceased operations on the same date. In 2022, city council voted in favour of demolishing the building after it was revealed that it cost the city $1.5 million in yearly upkeep costs to maintain the empty, obsolete venue in its current form.
The Oilers first moved into Northlands Coliseum while playing in the WHA back in 1974. They continued to play in the rink when they joined the NHL in 1979 and won four of their five Stanley Cups in games played at the rink during their 1980s dynasty.
It underwent three name changes during its lifespan, being called the SkyReach Centre between 1998 and 2003, then renamed Rexall Place from 2003 to 2016, before then going back to the original Northlands Coliseum moniker in 2016.
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The last NHL game played in the arena was a 6-2 Oilers victory over the Vancouver Canucks in April 2016.