LOS ANGELES – A Lego replica model of SoFi Stadium, the site of Super Bowl LVI, is on track to break a Guinness World Record.
Master builders are hard at work crafting the model that will be installed at Legoland California Resort in northern San Diego County. In all, it is expected to take builders thousands of hours and more than 500,000 Legos to finish the replica of the massive Inglewood venue that houses the NFL’s Chargers and Rams.
“We are super excited about this model (about) to come in,” master builder PJ Catalano said. “We have a record-breaking Lego stadium coming in. It’s going to be 30 feet by 15 feet by 4 feet tall.”
Catalano said it requires a “massive” undertaking to craft a model of a venue as large as SoFi Stadium.
“You’re not just half-heartedly putting some pieces together,” he said. “You’re contracting it out, building it out. You’re deciding, you’re designing from the bottom floor up. You have teams putting together different sections at different times and you have to know how it goes together.
“You have to know how it’s all going to come together and we’re basically building giant Lego chunks that have to come together and put together like Lego blocks themselves. It’s a really neat process.”
Catalano showed off a mocked-down version of the model being built that’s about one-seventh of the size of the one that will live at Legoland.
Positioned next to it was a version of the Lombardi Trophy — awarded to the winner of the Super Bowl — that Catalano called “super fun,” but not necessarily easy, to build.
“It may look simple, but it’s actually extremely complex,” he said. “There’s so many different angles on this. It actually took about two-and-a-half days to build. We keep it actually right in the model shop, so if anyone is visiting the Legoland California Resort, stop by the model shop. You can actually find it in a window and come by and see SoFi Stadium.”