Though significantly delayed, the crocodile-shaped stadium is entering its final construction phase. The Turkish Timsah Arena is to be ready in June.

Bursa mayor Recep Altepe visited the construction site of Timsah Arena on Wednesday. The largest stadium currently under construction in Turkey has just entered one of the most anticipated phases – seat installation.

So far several hundred white seats were installed in lower east stand. This is where white will create background to the green BURSA lettering. In other sections of the stand seats should create a wavy pattern of white and green. Purchase of roughly 45,000 seats won’t be cheap, they’re expected to cost TRY 6 million ($2.6m / €2.2m).

The concrete main structure of Timsah Arena was completed in mid-2013 and final delivery of the stadium was anticipated in 2014. However, it wasn’t until mid-2014 that the cable roof was lifted into place and currently works on outer cladding frame is ongoing. The cladding itself, consisting of green membrane, will be installed after temperatures go up and stabilize.

As Altepe announced, the stadium should be ready for opening in June this year. This way Bursaspor will be able to move to the new ground from the first game of their 2015/16 Super Lig campaign. However, at this point it’s not clear whether the stadium will be fully delivered at that time or only operable. There’s still significant amount of work to be done, particularly with the stadium’s most iconic feature – crocodile head in north-western corner.