When you enter the gates to M&T Bank Stadium, you are greeted with construction equipment, dust and the sound of buzzing saws. The controlled chaos currently requires all who enter to wear hard hats, safety goggles and construction vests.

By the time the season arrives, for a lucky few, the entrance through those gates will be a step into luxury.

The Ravens are at the start of a three-year renovation of the stadium, funded by the state. Much of the first phase of the $430 million in renovations is focused on upgrading the “premium” areas — but regular ticket holders will get to enjoy a new two-level beer hall. Fans can expect to see the biggest changes in 2025, and the renovations will continue into 2026.

“We didn’t want to disrupt the season and try to limit that as much as we can,” team president Sashi Brown said. “We also have some budgeting concerns. But we wanted to try to bring some of the elements online so we didn’t bring all the premium, all that up front. We wanted to make sure some of the [general admission] elements were also brought on at the same time. So we’re really excited to do those things in tandem and all the impact that it’s gonna have.”

The Ravens provided a “hard-hat tour” of the renovations Wednesday. With months to go, a lot of imagination and some help from renderings was required to picture the final product. Here’s what we saw compared to what it should look like:

General and upper concourse areas

The tour did not focus on this area, and it looked mostly the same with the exception of the construction everywhere.

However, by 2025, the upper concourse levels should be expanded to decrease foot traffic, and the bathrooms will be updated to handle a higher number of fans.

Beer hall

The roof deck is currently an open construction area with a great view of the city, but very soon it will be a bar with a great view of the city.

The Gatehouse and Roof Deck is a two-story beer hall that Brown said will open before the gates of the stadium to give fans a space to hang out before the game.

“We’ve always had fans that have inquired, ‘Are there spaces I can get into before the gates open?’” Brown said. “So this allows us to really meet our fans where they want to be.”

Brown added that it can be an in-game and post-game experience as well.

Already, you can see the beams that will form a roof over the top level of the beer hall, which currently is an open concrete space. Situated on the east side of the stadium, it looks out over Federal Hill in one direction and towards downtown in the other direction. It will eventually feature brick accents and rows of tables on the first floor and a roof with a bar, string lights, high tables and greenery.

The Gatehouse and Roof Deck will eventually be joined by two other plaza renovations. The north plaza, which will feature a tailgating and concert space, an indoor sports bar and a retail store, is slated to finish in 2025, and the south plaza, which will feature a retail store, should be done in 2026.

Club level

For the most part, the changes to the club level were superficial. The black columns were painted gray. The walls have new patterns and Ravens-related sayings and slogans on them.

The bars were covered, the floors were dusty and the lighting fixtures aren’t finished. But when the work is done done, they will feature new flooring and lights that will lead the way into the seating bowl.

The bathrooms are one of the biggest changes. They will be fully renovated. At the moment, the women’s restroom features new tiling and sinks.

The suites

Coming in 2024, there will be 136 field-level seats and 10 Blackwing suites, which replace the press box and offer the “best game-action view,” according to a press release. Three end zone suites (North, South and West) are scheduled to be completed in 2025. The guests in the field-level seats will have access to the North and South suites, which will be designed to have a “lounge-like atmosphere” and all-inclusive food and drink options.

The field-level seats are currently indicated by spray painted lines on the grass. But once they’re there, the fans will be so close they’ll be able to nearly touch the players on the sidelines during the game. A couple of feet separates the sections from the benches.

Currently, the Blackwing suites are a bunch of white walls, unfinished wood beams and wires hanging from the ceilings. But when guests finally arrive, they will be treated to an exclusive club space that looks like the lobby of a high-end hotel, with floors featuring black tile and white marble, and gold accents in the lighting and the bar.

The inside of the suites will have fancy tables, televisions and plush seats like those in a high-end movie theater. The private restrooms have marble flooring.

But it’s not just about how they look — it’s about the experience. The suite package will include parking and concierge service and access to an exclusive club area. Guests will have their own entrance so they don’t have to go into the concourse if they don’t want to, and by the time they enter the exclusive club, employees will know who they are and will greet them with a drink. The food and beverage options will be of a higher quality than those found throughout the rest of the stadium. Rich Tamayo, the team’s senior vice president of stadium operations and guest experience, said they want it to feel like a “five-star experience.”

Each suite seats up to 30 people and goes for hundreds of thousands of dollars per season — but they’re already sold out.

“It’s a really special product,” Brown said. “There’s not a lot of it, short supply. I’ve been in and around Baltimore just in my short two years, and we know as we’ve seen in CFG Arena, we’ve seen the appetite for the O’s, we’ve seen the appetite for the Ravens for years, live events and those experiences really sell, and this is going to be one of the most special experiences in sports.”