March 8, 2026
IF YOU STOOD AT THE TIP of False Creek in 1981 and looked out over the water, the sight would be nearly unrecognizable compared to today.
Downtown would still be there, but key pieces of today’s iconic skyline would be missing — chief among them, a 242,000-square-foot stadium designed to hold upwards of 54,000 spectators.
In its stead, you would see industrial land lining False Creek’s north shore, foregrounding the towers of downtown.
But within two years, in June 1983, the world’s largest air-supported domed stadium would be completed. And just a day after its grand opening, BC Place would set yet another record: the largest attendance at a Canadian soccer game to that point.
More than 60,000 spectators gathered under the 42-tonne, 3,720-square-metre inflatable roof to watch the Whitecaps christen the stadium with its first home win, breaking a 1-1 tie against Seattle in the 68th minute.
Paddy Byrne remembers working in the stadium before that giant roof was inflated.
“It was wild. When we were standing at centrefield, when the original project was being constructed, that suspended roof was sagging. It was not far above our heads,” he said.
“If you went up certain areas, you couldn’t see the other side of the stadium because the sagging roof was blocking your view.”
But one weekend, as construction was nearing completion, that changed. Returning to work on a Monday, Byrne recalls seeing the inside of the stadium with an inflated roof for the first time.
“It’s a total change in what you’d been looking at the previous week,” he said.
“Suddenly, there it is, suspended, keeping the weather out, and way above your heads, now. So, it was quite the transformation.”
Byrne worked on the original construction as a glazier, focusing on installing the glass revolving doors at the stadium’s entrances.
The doors had to be revolving because of that giant, inflatable roof, he noted. The sudden rush of air out of the building, if tens of thousands of fans were to leave through the regular doors all at once, would have caused the roof to crash.
Ahead of that Whitecaps game, Byrne recalls a “massive push” to get the job done so events could go on as scheduled.
“We were working two shifts in a day on the site,” Byrne said.
“You arrived inside, worked and ate on the jobsite and you went home, slept, and did the same thing all over again the next day. And that was seven days a week before the project was finally finished.”
But Byrne said the workers were motivated to get the job done, and not just for their pride in their ability to meet a strict deadline.
“It was exhausting… but I think a lot of the guys on the jobsite took pride in the fact that they were working on a pretty special project,” Byrne said.
“At the time when it was put up, it was the largest air-supported roof in North America, and perhaps the world, and we were working on it.
That’s not to say there weren’t also material perks to those extra hours. For one, the overtime pay added up — ‘we made off like bandits,’” Byrne joked. But he also spoke highly of the meals provided to workers in a full-time restaurant set up at midfield.
“You could wander down at any point in the day and get whatever you wanted to eat. I remember one evening being ravenous and going down and getting three steaks,” he said with a laugh. “We ate great on that project. It was fantastic. One of the best jobs I ever worked on for that.”
Just shy of three decades after Byrne saw the stadium take form with its newly inflated roof, workers witnessed another transformation.
Roy Bizzutto, Operative Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ International Association (OPCMIA) Local 919 business manager, remembers getting a view from north Burnaby of the “huge marshmallow” being deflated.
“We were in Capitol Hill doing a slab, and watching this thing slowly coming down,” he said. “It’s kind of weird. It’s an iconic thing that every time you see Vancouver, you always see BC Place.”
For 16 months, starting after the 2010 Winter Olympics, the stadium underwent a $514-million renovation, including replacing the inflatable roof with a retractable one.
That brought workers like Luis Walz and Juan Antonio, both cement finishers with OPCMIA Local 919, to the stadium to reinforce the cement columns, which were now supporting a roof much heavier than the original construction.
During the renovation, Antonio said it was almost unrecognizable as a stadium.
“It was just a construction site, like completely a construction site,” he said.
“It’s really busy. Busy, busy, lots of people. Everywhere you look, people are working, walking, doing all kinds of things.”
Bizzutto recalls watching videos of the construction from the 1980s and noticing a whole different world compared to today’s construction sites.
“There had to be a dozen cranes sticking out of that job, the original build, and guys are walking around, no hardhats on, no shirts on,” Bizzuto said.
Walz said that was nothing like the 2010 renovation, where the general contractor was, PCL, was “very strict.”
“We had a lot, a lot of rules,” he said.
Antonio and Walz typically work on high-rise buildings, and the stadium renovation meant a different kind of job — but it was also one that sticks out because of its status as a landmark.
“It’s an iconic place, and every time you go to Vancouver, you see it. You say, ‘Oh, wow, that is nice. I worked there,’” Walz said, adding that he points out to his kids that he worked on the stadium when they’re in the area.
It wasn’t just the roof and slab that were replaced. Since the airflow in the building was no longer a concern for roof stability, as it was with the inflatable roof, the revolving doors Byrne worked on have also been replaced.
But he still sees it as a special place that carries a bit of his DNA.
And more than 40 years after that original build, he’s still getting plenty of use out of the stadium when he goes to BC Lions games. And coming from Port Coquitlam, he uses another bit of infrastructure that also got its start in the Expo ’86 era to get there.
“I just jump on the train at Coquitlam Mall there, Coquitlam Centre, and I’m downtown in 45 minutes,” he said.
“It’s fantastic. I love it.”
By Dustin Godfrey