Town CEO Mark Ashton says a multi-million pound rebuild of the club’s Playford Road training ground is the next big project which will be undertaken.
Over the summer, the Blues spent £2.5 million on renovating the Portman Road pitch, while the training ground has already had similar hybrid surfaces installed, but with much bigger work still to come.
"The next big project for us is the training ground,” Ashton said at this evening’s Fans’ Forum at Portman Road.
"We’ve invoked architects to work with us on the design for the training ground, we need a total rebuild of the training ground for the first team and we need a more professional environment that [manager] Kieran [McKenna] can work in, develop players, enhance players, recruit players to.
"We’ve got the pitches now, but we need a multi-million pound spend on the facilities at the training ground to bring us up to speed.
"That is the next project. I think Kieran would have kicked me if I’d have said anything else.”
Quizzed on the club’s plans for the former Staples site behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, chief financial officer Tom Ball added: "With Staples, it’s a case of being a little bit patient, to be honest.
"The main thing for us was dropping the building, a) to stop a rates bill, but b) to allow the works to be done on the pitch over the summer. It was a very handy grounds compound.
"The reality is that we don’t just look at that as Staples and what are we going to put on that piece of land.
"We look at Portman Road as a venue and as a football stadium and also work with the council and look at the town of Ipswich and ask ‘What does the town of Ipswich need in the town centre?’.
"The Staples site is adjacent to the football club, it’s also a two-minute walk from the train station. We’ve got to think around all the best uses of that land, mainly for the football club because we’re biased, but for the town as a whole and what delivers the best return for the town and the county.”
Regarding the long-term plans for a rebuild of the Cobbold Stand, which is now more than 50 years old, Ball continued: "It’s something that we’re working on and as soon as you say you’re working on it I think everyone anticipates that something will happen immediately.
"We’re working on it because we like to have options, we want to have things there ready for when the time is right and the time when we’re looking at it, we’re talking years away, we’re not talking 12 months, we’re not talking 24 months, we’re talking a good few years into the future because we want to be firmly established wherever we are and we don’t want to be turning fans away.”
Ashton also announced that the memorial garden behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand for the ashes of fans previously interred on the pitch will open on 11th November.
In addition, the Blues CEO revealed that a couple of smaller screens could be sited around the ground at some point in the future.