Phase one of the Haymarket Arena project is well underway, and by the end of the summer, Arena Coordinator Dan Marvin says they'll have most of their all-star team assembled, including an architect, a project manager, a construction manager, and a marketing team to take on their huge vision.

"Lots of different things are going on. It's a complex coordination, but we've really been working on this for well over a year, and we think we're getting to the close of those sorts of coordination efforts," Marvin said.

He says until the city officially acquires the first section of land from Union Pacific on September 30th, there are some preliminary tests being done, including survey work and an environmental investigation.

"We're moving communication lines underneath there, we have to clear a lot of things out of the way, archeological work is required under various federal actions, that if you're going to be moving things, you need to look underneath the ground before you put a structure on top of that," said Marvin.

And the responsibility to dig up the site went to Dr. Peter Bleed, a professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who worked with 30 students to uncover the Haymarket's history.

"We excavated in available areas looking to see what the condition of the remains were," Dr. Bleed said. "We discovered that the Haymarket Arena area is essentially covered by a real thick layer of urban fill, clean soil and other kinds of debris that people have brought in there to raise the level."

The students dug through the dirt by hand and found a few artifacts to help them date the layers of soil. And Dr. Bleed says they might go back to look for an invaluable piece of Lincoln's history, the Emigrant House.

"The Emigrant House was a railroad facility that was located out there, it definitely will be in the area that will be developed by the arena. It was open in the early 1870s. It operated for a couple of years as a place where homesteaders and new emigrants could stay a night or two before they went on to their homesteads," he said.

Dr. Bleed says he'll present a report to the city on their findings, and after some research they'll decide whether to proceed with another dig for the Emigrant House.

But as Dr. Bleed looks back, Marvin is still looking ahead on Lincoln's journey to a new arena.

"I think we're proceeding about the way we expected. Certainly we'd like a building up, we'd like it up yesterday, but there's a long process to get you to that," Marvin said.

Marvin says the city is working on a new website where Lincoln residents will be able to track the progress of the new arena, which will likely include web cameras showing the construction and financial updates to show if they're on budget.