Retractable roof to cover Canadian soccer venue

The Vancouver Whitecaps move into a refurbished world-class soccer venue in 2010, and BC Pavilion Corp., Vancouver, B.C., hopes its retractable roof will give fans an intimate yet light-filled experience. The gathered synthetic roof fabric will effectively limit the capacity of the stadium to 22,000 seats, but allow end-zone draping to be removed for future growth.

“With the open-air experience the new roof will create, and the draping that will condense the stadium to a smaller venue more conducive to soccer, we are confident BC Place will meet major league soccer stadium standards,” says B.C. Tourism, Culture and Arts minister Bill Bennett. The roof technology resembles that of the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, Germany, the largest steel/cable membrane internal roof in the world. For more information, visit www.bcplacestadium.com.