One year ago, Rangers representatives joined the City of Arlington and MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred to break ground on the future home of the Texas Rangers. In the 12 months since the groundbreaking, the site has been transformed from a parking lot into the shell of the future home of the Texas Rangers, Globe Life Field.

The 365 days of progress on the 1.7 million square foot project started with 97,000 trucks removing 1.3 million cubic yards of dirt. Reaching 50 feet below street level took six months of construction, one of the longest steps on the project to date.

"The first six months after breaking ground was really spent doing foundation work and getting rid of the dirt," Rangers Senior Vice President of Project Development Jack Hill said. "You can see a tremendous amount of progress that has been made really in six to seven months, considering we didn't really get started until the dirt was out of here."

Click here to watch a time-lapse video of construction on Globe Life Field.

The foundation work involved drilling 780 piers into the ground to construct the building foundation. The March construction of concrete columns was the next major milestone, followed by the installation of the first steel beam in June.

As of September, just three months after the first piece of steel was erected, work on the 16,000 tons of structural steel for the seating bowl is 50 percent complete.

"Tremendous progress has been made with not only the steel, but the concrete," Hill added. "They've put most of the mid-level bowl in and now we're focusing on pouring the concrete for the steel decks."

The seating bowl became a recognizable ballpark as soon as the pre-cast treads and risers were installed in late summer. An estimated 75,000 cubic yards of concrete have already been poured on the site, with about 50,000 cubic yards remaining.

As the shell of the ballpark has started to take shape above ground, key work is also happening below street view, on both the lower concourse and service areas of the ballpark.

"There's a lot of functions for the stadium to operate that take place [in the tunnel], so we're focusing a lot of our attention putting up block walls, running duct work, and [installing] electrical and plumbing services that will service the building," Hill said.

Looking Ahead

There are only 18 months left until the gates at Globe Life Field open to more than 40,000 fans. Nearly 1,000 construction workers will continue to work around the clock to fulfill the March 2020 opening date.

The seating bowl construction will continue in the coming months, working its way to connect with the office building in the southeast corner.

Construction on the roof track began in early September, with the construction of roof trusses marking the first major step of the roof installation process. Erection of the roof steel will begin later this fall in the southeast area of the site, the same section where the first steel was erected.

The ballpark site will continue to rapidly transform toward completion. This time next year a majority of the facility will be completed, with exterior construction nearing the finish line.

"At this time next year the bowl and the structure will be filled in, and you'll have a majority of the roof on," Hill said.

Physical seats are also expected to be installed next fall, with the final months focused on finishing the interior spaces, as well as the field and service level.

"[In the final months of construction,] they'll be finishing out the clubs and they'll be working on the field and then around December [2019] they'll be putting in the furniture," Hill added. "There will be a million painters and electricians putting the fixtures in place to get ready to open."

Globe Life Field Construction Key Dates

• September 28, 2017: Globe Life Field Groundbreaking
• February, 2018: Excavation Completed
• February 27, 2018: First concrete column poured
• June 15, 2018: First Steel Column Erected
• August 7, 2018: North Plaza opens adjacent to Texas Live!
• September, 2018: One-Million Man Hours completed at site

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This article was written by Madison Pelletier and originally published on the Globe Life Field website.