Town have begun demolition work on the former Staples and Better Gym building behind the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand, which the club purchased in October 2021.

The club currently has no hard and fast plans for the land with CEO Mark Ashton telling TWTD in March that that will come into wider discussions with Ipswich Borough Council and other stakeholders regarding the land around the stadium.

“I’ve not got the date in my head, but in the next four to five weeks, the Staples [later Office Outlet] building will come down,” he said.

“We’ll put a hoarding around that for now and then we’re working through with the local authority on the master planning for the development of Portman Road, what they’re looking to do, what we’re looking to do, whether that’s car parking etc.

“We’ve got a number of options on that, we’re working through that with our American property partners and the council, but it should be down I would think in the next four or five weeks.”

The American property partners Ashton refers to are the club’s US owners: “The board, basically. We’ve got different expertise on the board. If you look at Ed Schwartz and ORG, they do a lot of property work, they’ve got contacts everywhere, which is great because we get to tap into them and use that expertise that I wouldn’t normally get around me.

“Whether that’s property, whether that’s stadium work, whether that’s other bits and pieces, it’s great because you can just tap into their knowledge base.”

Ashton says there are as yet no specific plans for the land with the club set to meet with IBC and other stakeholders regarding wider plans for the area around the stadium.

“At the moment, it’s undecided,” he said. “The reason for that is we want to look at the whole area that surrounds Portman Road, including stuff that doesn’t belong to the club.

“That’s why we’re talking to the council about what their plans are. We talked about Rhode Island, I think it’s fair to say that some of the areas in and around the stadium need regeneration.

“Can the football club, the council and the local authority work in partnership to regenerate this area around the football club so it works so we open the football club, we open up the pathway into the train station better?

“So we look at transport to the stadium, we look at parking around the stadium, we look at what the council want to do on the Portman Road site because we’ve got to make sure we’ve got access and egress.

“We’ve got to make sure that the club is protected in that there will come a point in time when we’re going to want to potentially replace the Cobbold Stand.

“Having done this at previous clubs, what we’ve got to make sure is that we understand the footprint for that stand, so that something doesn’t get built right directly behind it which prevents us at any point in time building back across, cantilevering etc. It brings all of those pieces of land into play.

“I wouldn’t say we’re right at the start, we’re fairly near the start but we’ve had some really productive conversations with the authority about how we can work in partnership.”

Photo: Blair Ferguson

superblues9 added 09:52 - May 2 Can these guys do any wrong ?😀
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Suffolkboy added 10:13 - May 2 Epitomises the saying ,' Fail to prepare ,and prepare to fail !' .Our Owners and Board ,plus the Executive clearly have a grasp of the prospects and objectives ,and it's going to be literally transformational for everybody connected to ITFC . Terrific to understand we're working so closely with the Local Authorities ,sharing ideas and planning ! COYB
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Bert added 10:24 - May 2 A master plan is absolutely the right approach. Piecemeal development always looks just like that ie a series of developments that do not hang together well. Cynics may say that the club with its owners can do this alone without the local authority but the Council has a stake in this to get it right from a planning and regeneration point of view. With the Premier League the ultimate goal, this piece of land together with an improved walk way from the station and possible changes in Portman Road could deliver a stadium, concourse and facilities we can all be proud of.

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Bazza8564 added 10:26 - May 2 Mark's thinking is very joined up, and he will have a vision for 5-7 years, the club will start at the Russell road site, and wrap it's way all around behind the North stand I'm sure. In an ideal world we would buy the PR car park site too, I'd rule nothing out. But if I were a betting man i'd wager Planet Blue, probably twice the size of the existing shop, goes into the new land. We desperately need more capacity, logic suggests to me the block corners that emerged with the SBR Stand would be easily taken down and seating added. That might give is another 2-3000 and would help capacity until the Cobbold either has another tier added or gets ripped down and rebuilt. It's speculation of course, but the club has capacity issues now and only so many options. Our gates have gone from 19000 pre COVID to 29500 in two GC years, season tickets from 12 to 21000 and there would have probably been 24000 to satisfy demand. It's all looking very rosy, and there are going to be some more good things coming......

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Guthrum added 11:10 - May 2 IBC must be delighted to have gone from disputes over rent possibly ending up in court (2010-12) to the club desiring talks on cooperation and the possibility of investment in the local area.
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Bert added 12:09 - May 2 …….. I agree with Bazza that there is a scenario where Planet Blue relocates to the new land but within any new building probably including the current sub standard ticket office etc in Constantine Road. I'm sure the owners will want an additional commercial element so perhaps relocate the restaurant and kitchen and temporarily improve the facilities for the fans in the space vacated ….. before we rebuild the Cobbold Stand when we have consolidated our position …… in the PL of course ! Norwich City must hate all this as they begin their probable decline.

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Tellitasitis added 16:43 - May 2 Being in the know i can tell you locked away in a architect's vault there are drawing for a new stand that would replace the Cobbold stand that would hold 33000 fans on it own it would stretch right over the existing Rd.
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Bazza8564 added 18:35 - May 2 Tellitasitis, HOLY CRAP! 33000 in one stand, are you sure? That feels like it would be 4-5 times the height of the exiting one. Are these concerts we've got planned Coldplay and Ed Sheeran and are they coming every week? In all seriousness thats a huge amount but a scaled down version that added enough to get us to 40000 feels like it's plenty enough. 33000 in one stand, 15000 at the ends and 10000 in the Magnus would be 58000. Good luck finding parking for those days :)

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Saxonblue74 added 18:41 - May 2 Did your info come from the same source as “Neil Harris 100% our next manager” and “Norwood going to Bulgaria with Alan Pardew” Tellitasitis??!!
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Tellitasitis added 19:22 - May 2 Did not say that it would be built but when other stands were built drawing were made up and that's a fact
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Saxonblue74 added 19:32 - May 2 Being "in the know" myself I can say with some confidence that a drawing for such a project would be hugely expensive, not undertaken for the fun of it!
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Tellitasitis added 19:41 - May 2 We must know the same guy and your correct because in their opinion not enough chimney pots, guessing you know what that means being in the know
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MickMillsTash added 21:24 - May 2 can the North Stand around be etended into the Cobbold in place of the club shop? Put the new club shop where Staples once stood. NO idea how that could be done. a 33000 stand - would be bigger than Man U's North Stand- you don't want to sit in the top tier of that. Given all the housing development in Suffolk maybe we need 2 x 33000 seat new stands
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parhamblue added 09:25 - May 3 Agree, the whole area requires regeneration. There is no regional government, no Metro Mayor, so the onus presumably falls on to IBC to see the determination and ambition, or otherwise. They have some desire to redevelop Crown Pools site and open a pool on the former cattle market site, but the whole area cries out to become a sports, entertainment and conferencing quarter of the town. This would require a large, flexible indoor venue on or near Portman Road. I hope that they rise to the challenge, and I'm much more confident that they will not find Gamechanger and ITFC lacking. There may be some subtle hints that this is where they are nudging the council, I hope so anyway.

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Harlestonblue added 14:04 - May 3 Bazza, when we get our 58,000 capacity stadium forget about car parking...…..probably best to get the train in.
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