| Stadium growth... 12:24 - Aug 25 with 2266 views | ThatMuhrenCross |
Following on from another threat about parking, I'm interested to get thoughts on how long-term the stadium capacity can grow.
The immediate focus is the Cobbold and West Stands, but once they're done, supposing there is demand for more capacity, what increases next?
I'd wondered if the next step would be acquiring land being the Sir Bobby Robson stand and potentially sticking a third tier on that? Afterall, once all this development is done, that will all of a sudden be our smallest stand. |  |
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| Stadium growth... on 12:38 - Aug 25 with 2122 views | greyhound |
The standard worry is how do you develop the cobbold when in a live prem season and maintain capacity/season tickets/hospitalty. Would imagine closing this area would have a significant revenue impact. It's a tired stand that's burned in heritage with the team photos etc part of me will be sad to see it go as its really symbolic of the club. We probably need to add 5-10k seats to move forward though and nothing stands in the way of progress as long as it makes financial sense judging by the approach to the training facility and transfer business over the last 3 years. |  | | |
| Stadium growth... on 12:46 - Aug 25 with 2041 views | Alberto_the_frog |
Can't get a third tier on that, with the houses right behind it. |  |
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| Stadium growth... on 12:50 - Aug 25 with 1988 views | backwaywhen |
| Stadium growth... on 12:38 - Aug 25 by greyhound |
The standard worry is how do you develop the cobbold when in a live prem season and maintain capacity/season tickets/hospitalty. Would imagine closing this area would have a significant revenue impact. It's a tired stand that's burned in heritage with the team photos etc part of me will be sad to see it go as its really symbolic of the club. We probably need to add 5-10k seats to move forward though and nothing stands in the way of progress as long as it makes financial sense judging by the approach to the training facility and transfer business over the last 3 years. |
6 to 8 thousand for me to be realistic of full houses . | | | |
| Stadium growth... on 13:03 - Aug 25 with 1897 views | ThatMuhrenCross |
| Stadium growth... on 12:46 - Aug 25 by Alberto_the_frog |
Can't get a third tier on that, with the houses right behind it. |
You'd have to buy them and demolish them... | |
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| Stadium growth... on 13:05 - Aug 25 with 1878 views | greyhound |
| Stadium growth... on 12:50 - Aug 25 by backwaywhen |
6 to 8 thousand for me to be realistic of full houses . |
Agree, sold out stadium while feeling that there's more opportunity for revuene can drive greater atmosphere and a bit of commercial urgency not to miss out | | | |
| Stadium growth... on 13:19 - Aug 25 with 1752 views | AVJones |
| Stadium growth... on 12:38 - Aug 25 by greyhound |
The standard worry is how do you develop the cobbold when in a live prem season and maintain capacity/season tickets/hospitalty. Would imagine closing this area would have a significant revenue impact. It's a tired stand that's burned in heritage with the team photos etc part of me will be sad to see it go as its really symbolic of the club. We probably need to add 5-10k seats to move forward though and nothing stands in the way of progress as long as it makes financial sense judging by the approach to the training facility and transfer business over the last 3 years. |
The drop in revenue is actually quite small, compared to turnover, IF we are in the PL.
£5million, perhaps, including match day spending for a season?
A drop in the ocean, seemingly, to us these days...
I'd say the bigger issues are massively annoying fans if they can no longer attend matches, and, financially, the enormous cost of a new stand and the risk of everything imploding if we get relegated. | | | |
| Stadium growth... on 13:23 - Aug 25 with 1704 views | bsw72 |
| Stadium growth... on 12:38 - Aug 25 by greyhound |
The standard worry is how do you develop the cobbold when in a live prem season and maintain capacity/season tickets/hospitalty. Would imagine closing this area would have a significant revenue impact. It's a tired stand that's burned in heritage with the team photos etc part of me will be sad to see it go as its really symbolic of the club. We probably need to add 5-10k seats to move forward though and nothing stands in the way of progress as long as it makes financial sense judging by the approach to the training facility and transfer business over the last 3 years. |
Am trying to work out how we add 5-10K additional seats into PR while minimizing disruption. Rebuilding of Cobbold may offer an option, especially with permission to build back onto the road / car park.
I know that the Fulham RIverside stand went from ~4,700 to 8,700 and cost $130M - although was obviously complicated by the nature of the location and the limited road access.
Better example could be Anfield Road Stadium which went from ~9K to 16K at a cost of £60M.
However Fulham took 6 years to build theirs and Liverpool nearly 4 years to build. |  | | |
| Stadium growth... on 13:25 - Aug 25 with 1677 views | bsw72 |
| Stadium growth... on 13:19 - Aug 25 by AVJones |
The drop in revenue is actually quite small, compared to turnover, IF we are in the PL.
£5million, perhaps, including match day spending for a season?
A drop in the ocean, seemingly, to us these days...
I'd say the bigger issues are massively annoying fans if they can no longer attend matches, and, financially, the enormous cost of a new stand and the risk of everything imploding if we get relegated. |
"I'd say the bigger issues are massively annoying fans if they can no longer attend matches, and, financially, the enormous cost of a new stand and the risk of everything imploding if we get relegated."
Yeah but we learned our lesson about that in 1986, oh, and learned the same lesson again in 2001  | | | |
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| Stadium growth... on 13:27 - Aug 25 with 1646 views | BluJu |
If it were feasible, the clever way to expand the North would be to rehouse the temporarily displaced season ticket holders in any newly created seats in another development, i.e. the Cobbold. Would mean that you'd have to bash on with one development straight after the other, or you commit to not dishing out season tickets for the new seats until it's completed.
Or some thinking-outside-the-box, like a Sit-on-my-knee scheme to share seats... |  | | |
| Stadium growth... on 13:40 - Aug 25 with 1526 views | Freddies_Ears |
Step 1: do all the groundwork at and below ground floor and concourse level to enable the West Stand to be enlarged.
Step 2: remove West Stand roof, build back around 10m-12m, adding another 15 - 20 rows x 200 seats each. Pop a new roof on so no restricted views any more. Capacity now around 34,000.
Step 3: demolish Cobbold Stand. Ideally pop a temporary stand up for a season & build the upper half of a new Stand behind it.
Temporary capacity around 32,000.
Step 4: remove the temporary stand and replace with new permanent lower half of Cobbold. Capacity now around 40,000.
Step 5: lots of new hospitality facilities in the new Cobbold Stand to make a few extra millions.
That may not be the plan, but it just might be an option. [Post edited 25 Aug 13:41]
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| Stadium growth... on 13:43 - Aug 25 with 1493 views | AVJones |
| Stadium growth... on 13:25 - Aug 25 by bsw72 |
"I'd say the bigger issues are massively annoying fans if they can no longer attend matches, and, financially, the enormous cost of a new stand and the risk of everything imploding if we get relegated."
Yeah but we learned our lesson about that in 1986, oh, and learned the same lesson again in 2001 |
Precisely!
Things can change very quickly.
When we started to build the Pioneer stand, relatively average players were being sold for £1.5 million (Gray, Daley etc). We could’ve banked on selling one of our many star players for that sort of money to pay for the stand.
Then the bottom fell out of the transfer market. We only got £600,000 for Wark and Mariner combined.
And then a similar financial implosion after relegation 24 years ago, that time led by a TV station going under. | | | |
| Stadium growth... on 13:50 - Aug 25 with 1423 views | Alberto_the_frog |
| Stadium growth... on 13:03 - Aug 25 by ThatMuhrenCross |
You'd have to buy them and demolish them... |
25 years ago the people living there took the council to court to try to stop the rebuild. I think an attempt to buy their homes and demolish them would meet with rather more disquiet. | |
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| Stadium growth... on 13:56 - Aug 25 with 1381 views | urbanpenguin |
| Stadium growth... on 13:43 - Aug 25 by AVJones |
Precisely!
Things can change very quickly.
When we started to build the Pioneer stand, relatively average players were being sold for £1.5 million (Gray, Daley etc). We could’ve banked on selling one of our many star players for that sort of money to pay for the stand.
Then the bottom fell out of the transfer market. We only got £600,000 for Wark and Mariner combined.
And then a similar financial implosion after relegation 24 years ago, that time led by a TV station going under. |
Well, thank goodness that the football economy is not a huge bubble that could burst at any moment and that we are not in a wider precarious economy. |  |
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| Stadium growth... on 13:58 - Aug 25 with 1360 views | The_Major |
If the life of a stand is approx 50 years, then SBR/SAR stands are only middle aged, wouldn't expect anything to happen to them till at least 2050. Besides which, if with the new side stands takes us up to 40-45k by say 2031, could we really sustain anything larger? 45k would make it bigger than Stamford Bridge, and Villa Park at the moment, as I believe that's going up to 50k.
Plus as others have said, there's the small matter of Alderman Road. And there's no guarantee that folk will move out no matter how much money we offered.
See this from the Wiki entry about Anfield for an example.
A second tier was added to the Kemlyn Road stand in 1992, turning it into a double-decker layout. It included executive boxes and function suites as well as 11,000 seating spaces. Plans to expand the stand had been made earlier, with the club buying up houses on Kemlyn Road during the 1970s, and 1980s, but had to be put on hold until 1990 because two sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, refused to sell their house. When the club reached an agreement with the sisters in 1990, the expansion plans were put into action. |  | | |
| Stadium growth... on 14:04 - Aug 25 with 1309 views | balcombeblue |
| Stadium growth... on 13:58 - Aug 25 by The_Major |
If the life of a stand is approx 50 years, then SBR/SAR stands are only middle aged, wouldn't expect anything to happen to them till at least 2050. Besides which, if with the new side stands takes us up to 40-45k by say 2031, could we really sustain anything larger? 45k would make it bigger than Stamford Bridge, and Villa Park at the moment, as I believe that's going up to 50k.
Plus as others have said, there's the small matter of Alderman Road. And there's no guarantee that folk will move out no matter how much money we offered.
See this from the Wiki entry about Anfield for an example.
A second tier was added to the Kemlyn Road stand in 1992, turning it into a double-decker layout. It included executive boxes and function suites as well as 11,000 seating spaces. Plans to expand the stand had been made earlier, with the club buying up houses on Kemlyn Road during the 1970s, and 1980s, but had to be put on hold until 1990 because two sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, refused to sell their house. When the club reached an agreement with the sisters in 1990, the expansion plans were put into action. |
Must be tempting to just build a new stadium? we don't have a stand <25 years old.
Assume this has been ruled out though? |  | | |
| Stadium growth... on 14:17 - Aug 25 with 1196 views | ParisBlue |
The plan is to build upwards on the Pioneer stand, move the Coobold season ticket holders there (and relocate away supporters to the south stand - they have to be that end for access to the station) then rebuild the cobbold.
We will end up with a capacity of 40k-42k, enough for internationals.
That was relayed to me on a stadium tour in April.
I was told the diggers would be in immediately after the final game, so the work this summer would appear to be the first stage of a much longer plan. [Post edited 25 Aug 14:18]
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| Stadium growth... on 14:28 - Aug 25 with 1122 views | grow_our_own |
| Stadium growth... on 13:40 - Aug 25 by Freddies_Ears |
Step 1: do all the groundwork at and below ground floor and concourse level to enable the West Stand to be enlarged.
Step 2: remove West Stand roof, build back around 10m-12m, adding another 15 - 20 rows x 200 seats each. Pop a new roof on so no restricted views any more. Capacity now around 34,000.
Step 3: demolish Cobbold Stand. Ideally pop a temporary stand up for a season & build the upper half of a new Stand behind it.
Temporary capacity around 32,000.
Step 4: remove the temporary stand and replace with new permanent lower half of Cobbold. Capacity now around 40,000.
Step 5: lots of new hospitality facilities in the new Cobbold Stand to make a few extra millions.
That may not be the plan, but it just might be an option. [Post edited 25 Aug 13:41]
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Step 1 & Step 2 ("build upwards on the Pioneer stand"): appears kicked into the long grass. We just built a new single storey structure where the extension would go. No deep piling was done.
I'd hope we'd keep most of the existing Cobbold and just build over the back of it to allow continued use. "Extension" also skirts around FIFA's stupid distance-from-pitch regs (designed for multi-row ad hoardings), and avoids losing the precious proximity-to-pitch we currently enjoy with our side stands. [Post edited 25 Aug 15:13]
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| Stadium growth... on 15:09 - Aug 25 with 1012 views | Ftnfwest |
A redevelop of Cobbold is the one area where we could significantly increase capacity. The other sides would only ever be building something better not necessarily much bigger. I can't see we'd ever need more than say 35,000 capacity anyway. Could always redvelop the admin corner so sir alf goes all the way along. Do like the players coming out of the corner though. |  | | |
| Stadium growth... on 15:26 - Aug 25 with 925 views | ThatMuhrenCross |
| Stadium growth... on 15:09 - Aug 25 by Ftnfwest |
A redevelop of Cobbold is the one area where we could significantly increase capacity. The other sides would only ever be building something better not necessarily much bigger. I can't see we'd ever need more than say 35,000 capacity anyway. Could always redvelop the admin corner so sir alf goes all the way along. Do like the players coming out of the corner though. |
Surely the new Cobbold will include new dressing rooms, media facilities, camera positions etc... which would mean players likely entering the pitch on the halfway line that side. | |
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| Stadium growth... on 15:34 - Aug 25 with 884 views | greyhound |
| Stadium growth... on 14:04 - Aug 25 by balcombeblue |
Must be tempting to just build a new stadium? we don't have a stand <25 years old.
Assume this has been ruled out though? |
When ashtons whole plan is centred around the club being the heart beat of the town I can't see a bowl on an industrial estate near Whitton having legs. | | | |
| Stadium growth... on 15:38 - Aug 25 with 857 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| Stadium growth... on 15:09 - Aug 25 by Ftnfwest |
A redevelop of Cobbold is the one area where we could significantly increase capacity. The other sides would only ever be building something better not necessarily much bigger. I can't see we'd ever need more than say 35,000 capacity anyway. Could always redvelop the admin corner so sir alf goes all the way along. Do like the players coming out of the corner though. |
35,000 is way too low with the plans the owners have for the club, and would badly undersell the potential for the stadium in the wider context. | | | |
| Stadium growth... on 16:22 - Aug 25 with 715 views | Alberto_the_frog |
| Stadium growth... on 15:34 - Aug 25 by greyhound |
When ashtons whole plan is centred around the club being the heart beat of the town I can't see a bowl on an industrial estate near Whitton having legs. |
A bowl on legs at Whitton? I'd go to that! Build it over the leisure centre. | |
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| Stadium growth... on 16:58 - Aug 25 with 649 views | The_Major |
| Stadium growth... on 15:34 - Aug 25 by greyhound |
When ashtons whole plan is centred around the club being the heart beat of the town I can't see a bowl on an industrial estate near Whitton having legs. |
Very true - and if that horrific day was ever going to come, itwill be on that western side of Town I'd have thought for simple geographical convenience - there's not much east to go before you end up in the sea, after all.
So there we are, 2047/48 season starting off in the White House Megadome, built on the Bramford Lane recreation ground - see you in the Henniker end! [Post edited 25 Aug 16:59]
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| Stadium growth... on 22:13 - Aug 25 with 396 views | balcombeblue |
| Stadium growth... on 15:34 - Aug 25 by greyhound |
When ashtons whole plan is centred around the club being the heart beat of the town I can't see a bowl on an industrial estate near Whitton having legs. |
Yeah, you're probably right. Would love a brownfield sit like Sunderland found though. They would have found it difficult leaving Roker but found a better connection with the new stadium | | | |
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