The new $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium is rising in the shadow of the Georgia Dome, and since it will be the home for the SEC Championship Game from 2017-2026, we thought we’d have a look at how the construction is going.

It’s an impressive project. “Wow” won’t be an unusual reaction, and when it’s finished, it will feature many unique aspects, including a circular retractable roof. Here’s how it will look when it’s completed:

Of course, it doesn’t look that way just yet. Here’s a shot of how it looks now, almost two years into the project, courtesy of mercedesbenzstadium.com:

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And here are a few candid photos from Twitter:

You can also view a live web cam of the construction here.

Last week, the Atlanta Falcons posted a video on their YouTube channel about the process of building the retractable roof which, according to the video, will take 40 million pounds of steel to support.

Building the roof, which according to the stadium’s website is “a design inspired by the oculus of the Pantheon in Rome,” is dangerous.

The seriousness of the task comes through in the video:

The guy on top of the truss at about the 3:10 mark of the video is nuts, by the way.

And, here’s a time lapse video of the construction progress through the end of March as the site next door to the Georgia Dome is transformed:

The 71,000-seat stadium (expandable to 75,000) is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2017. Private money is paying for at least 70 percent of the cost.

The Georgia Dome’s last scheduled event is a supercross event in February 2017, and the structure, which opened in 1992 and has hosted two Super Bowls, three Final Fours and every SEC Championship Game since 1994, will be demolished to make room for parking for the new venue.