Chelsea Stadium Plans

[Ham]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/21137957/chelsea-warn-fans-stamford-bridge-redevelopment-temporary-stadium/

 

[Holymoly]

"Goldstein said: "We are looking very heavily at redevelopment. The planning process is something we will start next year, and we'll hope central government will get behind it and see it as an engine for growth."

I do believe central government owes us something after nearly putting us out of business. Won't hold my breath however.

[Ham]

One of the regular contributors (a Chelsea fan) on an architectural forum I frequent has posted something very interesting.

He was, in the last few days, discussing the future plans with a couple of people very close to the new ownership and they happened to mention that Earls Court was "very, very much on the table" still. 

Talk of grand plans for the entire site, similar to the O2.

Very exciting if true. 

I'm guessing they're planning to unleash Behdad 🤜💥

[boratsbrother]

23 hours ago, Ham said:

One of the regular contributors (a Chelsea fan) on an architectural forum I frequent has posted something very interesting.

He was, in the last few days, discussing the future plans with a couple of people very close to the new ownership and they happened to mention that Earls Court was "very, very much on the table" still. 

Talk of grand plans for the entire site, similar to the O2.

Very exciting if true. 

I'm guessing they're planning to unleash Behdad 🤜💥

Imho, it's got to be either a stand by stand rebuild or a new stadium at Earls Court.  Playing at Wembley (probably half full) for 5 years would be a terrible move.

And btw. Why the hell does it take so many years to build a flipping football stadium? I've seen large housing estates built in a fraction of the time being mentioned to rebuild the bridge. 

I'm also with the architect who said last year there is no need for a 60,000 stadium. He said that not only could we build a world class 50,000 stadium,  but also said  the those extra 10,000 seats for a 60,000 stadium will be the ones which hugely increase the cost of the rebuild.

It's a no brainer to have a spanking new stadium at  a significantly lower cost and also built in a lot less time. 

 

[chara]

@boratsbrotherNew "Football" stadiums go up over here in almost no time...of course I don't have the knowledge to compare the work time and I appreciate there are many factors involved but the disparity it has always puzzled me.

[Bob Singleton]

6 minutes ago, chara said:

@boratsbrotherNew "Football" stadiums go up over here in almost no time...of course I don't have the knowledge to compare the work time and I appreciate there are many factors involved but the disparity it has always puzzled me.

Are these new stadia surrounded by some of the most expensive homes (£/m²) in the country with a railway line along one side, a cemetery next door, with just one very busy main road as access in one of the most congested parts of the capital? Or are they, like many new stadia in the US built on a large tract of unused land, with little close by, accessed by wide multi-lane highways?

[boratsbrother]

19 minutes ago, chara said:

@boratsbrotherNew "Football" stadiums go up over here in almost no time...of course I don't have the knowledge to compare the work time and I appreciate there are many factors involved but the disparity it has always puzzled me.

My guess is excessive regulations and over cautious health and safety practices. 

Does my nut in at work with the amount of time wasted with trivial health and safety practices, all of which would not needed if people simply concentrated on what they are doing during the moments they need to fully concentrate...grrrr!

[Michael Tucker]

17 minutes ago, Bob Singleton said:

Are these new stadia surrounded by some of the most expensive homes (£/m²) in the country with a railway line along one side, a cemetery next door, with just one very busy main road as access in one of the most congested parts of the capital?

Nope.

17 minutes ago, Bob Singleton said:

Or are they, like many new stadia in the US built on a large tract of unused land, with little close by, accessed by wide multi-lane highways?

Yes.

[Bob Singleton]

3 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

My guess is excessive regulations and over cautious health and safety practices. 

Does my nut in at work with the amount of time wasted with trivial health and safety practices, all of which would not needed if people simply concentrated on what they are doing during the moments they need to fully concentrate...grrrr!

Yeah, let's get rid of all those annoying H&S regs!!!

https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/health-safety-news/grenfell-tower-serious-safety-breaches/42006/#:~:text=The Grenfell Tower inquiry has been told that,was “a culture of non-compliance” at the tower.

[chara]

20 minutes ago, Bob Singleton said:

Are these new stadia surrounded by some of the most expensive homes (£/m²) in the country with a railway line along one side, a cemetery next door, with just one very busy main road as access in one of the most congested parts of the capital? Or are they, like many new stadia in the US built on a large tract of unused land, with little close by, accessed by wide multi-lane highways?

The "new' Broncos stadium is in the middle of Denver and rose pretty quickly. I appreciate the difference or rather the Stamford Bridge locale but such a huge time difference in construction is a puzzle.

[Bob Singleton]

24 minutes ago, chara said:

The "new' Broncos stadium is in the middle of Denver and rose pretty quickly. I appreciate the difference or rather the Stamford Bridge locale but such a huge time difference in construction is a puzzle.

Yeah, looks like they really had to squeeze that in!!

[chara]

@Bob Singleton Access access access, of course it is easier than SB but a site is a site surely and construction is construction.

Taking everything into account the time difference seems a puzzle still.

I believe the new stadium was on an existing sports venue,,from misty memory.. and it is in the middle of Metro Denver not out on the plains as is DIA .

[boratsbrother]

33 minutes ago, chara said:

The "new' Broncos stadium is in the middle of Denver and rose pretty quickly. I appreciate the difference or rather the Stamford Bridge locale but such a huge time difference in construction is a puzzle.

The referb of the Bridge in the late 90's was done and dusted very quickly. Obviously the new stadium will be a bigger project, but it's only one stand more than the last job. Furthermore, I see no good reason why they're even thinking about knocking down the east stand. Imho, that stand is a hugely significant part of our history, so I would like it to stay, but obviously upgraded. 

[chara]

14 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

The referb of the Bridge in the late 90's was done and dusted very quickly. Obviously the new stadium will be a bigger project, but it's only one stand more than the last job. Furthermore, I see no good reason why they're even thinking about knocking down the east stand. Imho, that stand is a hugely significant part of our history, so I would like it to stay, but obviously upgraded. 

I read somewhere, from a Ham post I think, that a 50.000 capacity stadium upgraded by 10000 would not represent good value or return.

I'm of the very uniformed opinion that the future of football as a spectator sport is of a more condensed live game presence and far more media viewing presentation home and internationally.

[Ham]

40 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

The referb of the Bridge in the late 90's was done and dusted very quickly. Obviously the new stadium will be a bigger project, but it's only one stand more than the last job. Furthermore, I see no good reason why they're even thinking about knocking down the east stand. Imho, that stand is a hugely significant part of our history, so I would like it to stay, but obviously upgraded. 

Without knocking the East Stand down and moving the footprint of the stadium back over the lines towards the cemetery, nothing happens. We don't get any extra seats. 

Besides, it's friggin' hideous. 

[Sciatika]

It's probably a stupid thing to say but, if you could have the entire site bounded by the Fulham Road, the Overground, the District Line and the station, you could put up a very large stadium. But that relies on having the land occupied by the Stoll building and, at least, some if not all of the houses in Hilary Close between the gates. We would need to rehouse the veterans. Also, each house would cost a lot of money assuming you could persuade people to sell. By having the Stoll building, you could deal with the egress issues. However, realistically such a plan would require a complete rebuild because you have to rotate the pitch. As we know from the previous plan, trying to increase capacity in the space available would require dropping the pitch, building over the railway and so on which would also be very expensive and require us to vacate the sire for some years.

Also, let's say every seat brought a return of about £1000/season. An increase of 1K to capacity would bring £1m per season Spending £500m to increase capacity by 10K would take 50 years to recover. As an investor, I am thinking that's not great from an LTV perspective.

[ROTG]

12 hours ago, Bob Singleton said:

Are these new stadia surrounded by some of the most expensive homes (£/m²) in the country with a railway line along one side, a cemetery next door, with just one very busy main road as access in one of the most congested parts of the capital? Or are they, like many new stadia in the US built on a large tract of unused land, with little close by, accessed by wide multi-lane highways?

You can also put on top of that limited working hours "probably Mon to Fri only" resulting in the slightest delay will have a knock-on effect without any means of recovery.

[boratsbrother]

10 hours ago, chara said:

 

 

 

10 hours ago, chara said:

I read somewhere, from a Ham post I think, that a 50.000 capacity stadium upgraded by 10000 would not represent good value or return.

 

Thats the opposite to what the architect I referred to said about the capacity.

He said it would be the taking it to 60,000 which would not be good value as those extra 10,000 seats will be the ones which push costs up by many hundreds of millions. He also bigged up  the scarcity of tickets available in a smaller stadium would  add value to those tickets.

Knocking down the hotel and rebuilding the shed end would make room for 4,000 extra seats, so we'd only be looking at a further 5,000 extra seats from the other three sides to take us to that 50, 000 capacity, something which should be easily doable and done in a fraction of the time and cost of the over ambitious bigger stadium.

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by boratsbrother

[Bob Singleton]

11 hours ago, chara said:

@Bob Singleton Access access access, of course it is easier than SB but a site is a site surely and construction is construction.

Taking everything into account the time difference seems a puzzle still.

I believe the new stadium was on an existing sports venue,,from misty memory.. and it is in the middle of Metro Denver not out on the plains as is DIA .

I very much doubt that you've taken everything into account, though.

That Broncos stadium, in spite of looking like it's in central Denver on a map, is essentially surrounded by huge parking lots, the biggest of which surrounds the stadium itself. That parking lot is, at a guess, 5 or 6 times the footprint of the stadium. Stamford Bridge, on the other hand, is about 5 or 6 times bigger than the parking available on site. That impacts on how many lorries can access the site to, firstly, remove debris, then later, deliver building materials. The narrow, congested roads around ST don't help either. I'm guessing that the local councils won't allow lorries to park up on the roads as they await an available space on site to load/unload, so we're looking at 'just in time' deliveries. Ask any factory what happens when things don't happen 'just in time'. Furthermore, there is nothing residential about the area surrounding the Broncos stadium, unlike ST, so I'm going to guess that building was allowed to be done outside of the hours of, say, 8:30-17:30 Mon to Fri.

It's very difficult having a sensible discussion with someone not comparing like with like.

 

[boratsbrother]

Planning permission alone takes forever in this country.

And back to the health and safety issue and other regulations.

During the 60's & 70's there was a lot of houses, flats and other buildings which looked like they were designed by Stevie Wonder and built by the Trotters. Cowboy companies everywhere building with the cheapest materials and cutting corners when and wherever they could, thus resulting in slum council estates (I was brought up on a council estate,  so I'm not having a dig at the people who ended up living in  one of those shitholes) and tragedies like Grenfell. That appalling era has thankfully long gone and nobody will get away with building crap like that today.

Anyway, here's a recent  example of things going way too far the other way now. I had a hole on an outside wall which needed filling in. Only a small hole,  but I didn't have a ladder or the materials to fill it in so had to get the work done for me. It should have been a five minute job for one person with a ladder. Instead,  it took two guys to come out and errect some scaffholding and then do the job . I told one of the workmen that it was joke, but he said they have no choice but to follow their health and safety rules. 

 

 

 

[chrisb]

With a higher capacity it would be a more attractive venue for other uses. With the trend seeming to be for multipurpose stadia like The Emirates, the London Stadium and that toilet seat thing that Spu*s have, they are all used for hosting big gigs, American football games etc. This all must increase annual revenues. Currently SB is used only for football. A big stadium in West London with good transport links and facilities could prove to be quite a good earner.

[Holymoly]

15 hours ago, boratsbrother said:

And btw. Why the hell does it take so many years to build a flipping football stadium? I've seen large housing estates built in a fraction of the time being mentioned to rebuild the bridge. 

I'd rather the new stadium wasn't timber frame, but I do agree with you otherwise 😀

[Holymoly]

14 hours ago, Bob Singleton said:

Yeah, let's get rid of all those annoying H&S regs!!!

Of course the counter argument to yours is that Grenfell Tower WAS built under current H&S laws at the time. The fact that they were erroneous or that corruption was involved will always bypass that. You can have all the laws you like but it doesn't stop people breaking them unfortunately.

[FrankLampard8]

1 hour ago, boratsbrother said:

Planning permission alone takes forever in this country.

And back to the health and safety issue and other regulations.

During the 60's & 70's there was a lot of houses, flats and other buildings which looked like they were designed by Stevie Wonder and built by the Trotters. Cowboy companies everywhere building with the cheapest materials and cutting corners when and wherever they could, thus resulting in slum council estates (I was brought up on a council estate,  so I'm not having a dig at the people who ended up living in  one of those shitholes) and tragedies like Grenfell. That appalling era has thankfully long gone and nobody will get away with building crap like that today.

Anyway, here's a recent  example of things going way too far the other way now. I had a hole on an outside wall which needed filling in. Only a small hole,  but I didn't have a ladder or the materials to fill it in so had to get the work done for me. It should have been a five minute job for one person with a ladder. Instead,  it took two guys to come out and errect some scaffholding and then do the job . I told one of the workmen that it was joke, but he said they have no choice but to follow their health and safety rules. 

The reason that era is over is largely due to the regulations we have now though... or are you suggesting that we don't need regulations because everyone is a great upstanding guy these days and will built safe stuff with the best materials out of the kindness of their heart? because I have news for you. 

1 hour ago, boratsbrother said:

Anyway, here's a recent  example of things going way too far the other way now. I had a hole on an outside wall which needed filling in. Only a small hole,  but I didn't have a ladder or the materials to fill it in so had to get the work done for me. It should have been a five minute job for one person with a ladder. Instead,  it took two guys to come out and errect some scaffholding and then do the job . I told one of the workmen that it was joke, but he said they have no choice but to follow their health and safety rules. 

Did you get a quote from them for the Stamford Bridge renovation?

[jasonb]

What was the CPO stance the last time a stadium move was proposed?

I thought they were against this.