New stadium thread

[mizer]

I'm heartened to hear that AFC now intend to enter discussions with the shire, it shows that they're not giving up without a fight.

 

But it would be mad to move even further out, Loriston was already too far out. Surely the only other option would be Portlethen - it has a train station but can you see fowk going all the way out there on a rainy winters day?

[Tyrant]

But it would be mad to move even further out, Loriston was already too far out. Surely the only other option would be Portlethen - it has a train station but can you see fowk going all the way out there on a rainy winters day?

 

 

No.

 

Stay where the fuck we are and find a way to sort oot the problems. I appreciate there are obstacles but for fuck sake let's think of a way roond them.

[Kowalski]

But it would be mad to move even further out, Loriston was already too far out. Surely the only other option would be Portlethen - it has a train station but can you see fowk going all the way out there on a rainy winters day?

 

Front page of the EE has the Shire Council ready to welcome AFC with open arms.

I think Portlethen and Inverurie are getting talked about.  If it was walkable from Portlethen station then that's easier for big numbers to get to than Cove.  Would be a hell of a change moving that far out of the city though.

 

Maybe they should build it on top of UTG...

[bloo_toon_red]

Never in a month of Sundays will it be built in Inverurie.  The whole rail transport thing is a massive red herring.  The majority of away support will still go by bus, and the rail network is too poor in NE for home fans to use.

 

In my opinion, Blackdog, Blackburn, Countesswells or Blairs are good locations in the shire as all will be accessible by the AWPR (stop sniggering!).  Indeed RGU are about to construct a fairly large sports campus off the South Deeside Road directly across the river from the Art School, and their long term plan is to use the South Deeside Road for access to the RGU campus as opposed to Garthdee Road, a series of pedestrian bridges crossing the river.  Possible tie-ins to RGU Sports as opposed to ASV?

[Madbadteacher]

Knock doon St Nick Hoose and Marishall College and build it there!

[proudtobeadon]

Talk about moving to Portlethen or Inverurie is absolutely ridiculous, this is way too far out. The stadium should be within the city and if the only option was the shire then just and only just outside the city boundary. Still think we should be staying at Pittodrie.

[Dandy_Don]

Maybe out beside Blackdog?

[tom_widdows]

Talk about moving to Portlethen or Inverurie is absolutely ridiculous, this is way too far out. The stadium should be within the city and if the only option was the shire then just and only just outside the city boundary. Still think we should be staying at Pittodrie.

We are

 

But eventually Pittodrie will start to follow the likes of Firhill & Palmerston Park ergo have at least one stand which is either unsafe, or too expensive to make safe for spectators.

Main Stand will go first followed eventually by the South Stand so we end up with a unique 9638 capacity stadium which only has stands behind the goals.

[Drewsome]

Just my 2 pence worth.

 

Aberdeen & Toronto both play in similar size stadia. Toronto re-did the north end this past off season and it was ready for the start of the season. My thought is could Pittodrie be redone  in a similar way; one stand at a time over 4-6 years?

OK you Aberdeen Uni Engineering students, you now have your homework for the entire semester. Come up with a way to make it work!

[tom_widdows]

Just my 2 pence worth.

 

Aberdeen & Toronto both play in similar size stadia. Toronto re-did the north end this past off season and it was ready for the start of the season. My thought is could Pittodrie be redone  in a similar way; one stand at a time over 4-6 years?

OK you Aberdeen Uni Engineering students, you now have your homework for the entire semester. Come up with a way to make it work!

2 questions

 

1) Who pays for this development? The only asset the club has of any real value is the land Pittodrie sits on.

2) How do you fit 15000 seats into a space which UK building regulations, Planning restrictions, & safety standards and Uefa Rules only allows for approx 7-8000?

 

[Madbadteacher]

Big problem with Pittodrie is it's surrounded by houses and roads and 2(?) of 4 stands are relics. It would need a total rebuild on a very tight sight site, but it may work, just where the fuck would we

a) get the money

b) get the permission

c) play for the 5 years it would take

[Drewsome]

That's what I am saying, Re-Do Pittodrie. No asset lost. By breaking the project down into chunks the club can run things over as many phases as it likes. In looking at a few stadia one could easily find ways to put in restaurants and or pubs that could be open to the public year round and help pay back the cost of construction. No easy feat that's true but give it a whirl.

 

I actually saw on Football Factories where 1 club in Austria(I think?) has leased out a pub to its biggest supporters' club and the place is always busy...

 

Like I said, come up with a way to make it work!

My Highschool Economics class came up with a way to save our local drive in theatre (and it worked). Surely the Dons Supporters can come up with a way to capitalize and construct the new Pittodrie.

[CtS]

Totally agree with Drewsome.

 

I've always been a bit suspicious about Milnes fascination with moving from Pittodrie.  I'm guessing most dons fans, especially us older ones, would prefer a Pittodrie redevelopment if it was a possibility.  Even if it meant lowering the capacity to 16,000, at least we'd be staying at our 'spiritual home'. And if it takes 10 years to complete due to financial restrictions - so what?  Ibrox took about 20 years to redevelop.  And 'state of the Art' training complexes, with the resources, land opportunities, and contacts Milnes got it would be a piece of piss to build a training ground outside the city somewhere.

 

 

I've been hearing about new stadiums since I was a teenager.  Enough.  Stop giving us problems, as a club we need to be pro-active and start finding solutions.

 

 

Staying is the new moving.  And CtS is with De La Soul when he says 'Say no go'. 

[tom_widdows]

Drew I reckon you should take a trip to a Scottish Planning office.

 

Then take a trip to Aberdeen Licensing board and float the idea of a restaurant and pub in an area which is 10mins drive from the beach leisure and retail parks and full of residents who will jump down the throat of any council member who dares suggest they put so much as a corner shop on their doorstep. Make sure you mention the success of the Broadhill Bar.

 

Then tell me where a club with debts of 10million+ comes up with min 2million per stand over the space of x number of years. Take into account that in the case of the main stand, on top of this 2million design & construction cost the club would need to find and pay for alternative accommodation for the club offices & player facilities. They would also be paying through the nose for traffic management of Pittodrie street (a road closure permit can cost £1000s per day). While the construction was taking place they would be 3600 seats and 24 executive boxes down losing even more income. Some might say the club should redevelop the south stand first but while that happens the club is still paying the maintenance costs of the main stand and would be 8500 seats down. When it was finished it is not ideally placed for any kind of restaurant or shop development and the extra infrastructure required for such things would reduce the space for fans facilities and seating even further.

 

A football club is not the same as a cinema. Cinemas are for everyone. People like cinemas especially when they suddenly find themselves without one - Oban residents recently got their local cinema back up and running. Thanks to modern technology they can also be run on quite a tight budget and with relatively few staff.

Football is not for everyone. There are lots of people who would be overjoyed if Pittodrie & AFC and even the whole scottish league vanished. And professional football teams are not cheap. Staff & players wages, Catering costs, Stewards & policing, Utilities for floodlights & undersoil heating etc, stadium maintenance & security, marketing and many many more outgoings all of which need to covered by fans coming through the turnstiles in ever decreasing numbers, relatively tiny handouts from TV companies and the governing bodies and sponsors.

 

Get your high school economics class to research what it cost to run an SPL football team. Then introduce them to health & safety rules, planning processes & building regulations, and good old fashioned debt with a healthy interest rate. Then point out the product they have to turnaround is slowly dying because people would rather pay £40 a month to sit in the warm watching Barcelona & Man United on their big screen TVs than sit in sub zero damp conditions watching the dons play Kilmarnock and co.

I reckon some would say 'why are we doing this?' and the rest would say 'fuck off, its a dying business, I'm not touching that'

 

The club is like a pensioner living in a million pound house. Asset rich but cash poor and the heating is getting more expensive every year

 

 

fuck im depressing myself. Wish this had been brought up 12years ago when I was still in the early years of uni and was yet to experience the disappointment of the real world of construction & businiess

 

 

 

 

[tom_widdows]

Ibrox took 10 years to redevelop (7years to plan & research, 3 years to build). It was also funded by a massive fans initiative and they had the luxury of knowing they would get 40000 punters through the door every second week so sponsorship was basically a given. It was also done at the time when you didn't have to pay your players 1000s per week, werent having your fans poached by excessive TV coverage and they had a nice big site with lots of space around it.

[bloo_toon_red]

The feasibility studies carried out by professional organizations with more knowledge than 95% of AFC supporters have proved pittodrie isn't viable. End of. It's been documented countless times by the club much though we don't like it, we have to move.

[Reekie_Red]

The talk about easter road is very pertinent:

 

http://goo.gl/maps/3cmsR

 

The ground that Easter Road sits on is arguably no bigger (possibly even smaller!!) than the ground that Pittodrie sits on. We've got a whackin big carpark to the north of us, and another odd-shaped carpark and hill-area to the south-east of the stadium.

 

Seriously, what is wrong with redeveloping that area over the space of a year? If Caley Thistle can relocate to Pittodrie for a season, surely we can relocate to Tulloch Stadium, Dens Park or East End Park for a few months whilst our "Construction Firm Chairman" gets the stadium rebuilt on the current land that we already own.

 

What grates me is that a seperate business dedicated to the relocation of the club actually separated itself from Aberdeen Football Club 2 or 3 years ago. Seriously, what the hell have this company done over the past few years? They've failed to deliver the stadium in time for the start of the 2013-14 season; they've failed to secure enough backing to support the training facilities at Calder Park; they've failed to even consider Plan-B

[Madbadteacher]

Part of the problem, though, if I'm believing what I hear, is that a lot of the frontage of Pittodrie (main and Merkland) is "listed"?

[bloo_toon_red]

The talk about easter road is very pertinent:

 

http://goo.gl/maps/3cmsR

 

The ground that Easter Road sits on is arguably no bigger (possibly even smaller!!) than the ground that Pittodrie sits on. We've got a whackin big carpark to the north of us, and another odd-shaped carpark and hill-area to the south-east of the stadium.

 

Seriously, what is wrong with redeveloping that area over the space of a year? If Caley Thistle can relocate to Pittodrie for a season, surely we can relocate to Tulloch Stadium, Dens Park or East End Park for a few months whilst our "Construction Firm Chairman" gets the stadium rebuilt on the current land that we already own.

 

What grates me is that a seperate business dedicated to the relocation of the club actually separated itself from Aberdeen Football Club 2 or 3 years ago. Seriously, what the hell have this company done over the past few years? They've failed to deliver the stadium in time for the start of the 2013-14 season; they've failed to secure enough backing to support the training facilities at Calder Park; they've failed to even consider Plan-B

 

1 who pays for this redevelopment?

 

2 the main stand cannot be redeveloped to meet building standards or UEFA regulations without a) buying the east end of pittodrie street, or b) redeveloping the entire stadium to accommodate the facilities that currently exist in the bowels of the main stand elsewhere in the stadium.

 

3 had the separate stadium company not been set up, there is an extremely high likelihood the club would've been placed in administration at some point. As it is, AFC does not own high value assets and manages to live within its means to all intents and purposes. Talltray takes on the risk and is better placed to cover debts. I know of a company who owned their premises selling it recently not to raise cash, but to shed assets to stop the banks calling in debts, and this is happening everywhere.

 

4 no part of pittodrie stadium is listed to the best of my knowledge

[tom_widdows]

Bloo toon beats me to it 

 

The talk about easter road is very pertinent:

 

http://goo.gl/maps/3cmsR

 

The ground that Easter Road sits on is arguably no bigger (possibly even smaller!!) than the ground that Pittodrie sits on. We've got a whackin big carpark to the north of us, and another odd-shaped carpark and hill-area to the south-east of the stadium.

 

Seriously, what is wrong with redeveloping that area over the space of a year? If Caley Thistle can relocate to Pittodrie for a season, surely we can relocate to Tulloch Stadium, Dens Park or East End Park for a few months whilst our "Construction Firm Chairman" gets the stadium rebuilt on the current land that we already own.

 

What grates me is that a seperate business dedicated to the relocation of the club actually separated itself from Aberdeen Football Club 2 or 3 years ago. Seriously, what the hell have this company done over the past few years? They've failed to deliver the stadium in time for the start of the 2013-14 season; they've failed to secure enough backing to support the training facilities at Calder Park; they've failed to even consider Plan-B

 

Problem 1 - The clubs only asset to pay for stadium improvements is the land pittodrie sits on. There is barely enough money to cover the upkeep and the bank is not going to jump at the chance to lend more cash. Why do all of you who are digging your heels in about relocating keep ignoring this FACT?

 

Problem 2 - That whackin big car park you mention (and im beginning to hit my head of concrete walls over this) is seperated from the stadium site by a public road. Said road provides access to commercial and residential property aswell as being an emergency services route for the stadium. You cannot just apply to close that (either temporarily or permanantly) and expect it to happen. The amount of neighbour objections would be enough for the council to recommend it for refusal and thats before environmental health & the Roads Department got their hands on it. And if someone re-mentions a tunnel, building over the top of a public road causes major headaches on motorways let alone in a built up urban area. Like it or not the council dont have little interest in helping AFC and will have even less interest if it is going to cause them a headache.

The odd shaped car-park to the south east is as you already said to the south east. The boundary  only goes to the pitch halfway line. On the other half is now residential/ commercial development. Had the club managed to buy the old gas main then there would be scope to either turn the pitch 90d or shift it several meters south. But in doing that the RDS would need to be adapted/ rebuilt which would jack up the price even more.

There is also the fact that if you go for planning permission for any new development you are asked how many existing parking spaces there are and how many new you will be providing. I did a small house extension in Renton and the council demanded the owners give up their front garden and add another parking space (they would also have had to adapt the existing council owned pavement at vast expense). I eventually managed to get a relaxation after a big fight but that was for adding 1 new bedroom and a larger kitchen to a house. What do you think is going to be the response from the council when the club says it intends to reduce the current non-compliant parking allocation?

 

Problem 3 - Caley only lasted half a season at pittodrie. They were back at Caley stadium by January. In those 5months they were not only forking out rent to AFC, the also had to fork out travel expenses for every single game, and were averaging crowds of 1400. They were losing out on Corporate money too as local inverness businesses were exactly keen on a 200mile round trip for a piss up every saturday. AFC relocating to Inverness or Dundee (fuck sake east end park? Perth is the 3rd option) would have a similar effect. For starters the reduction in capacity - Inverness: down 15000 seats, Dens Park: down 10000 seats, Tannadice: down 8000 seats. The loss of corporate income and stadium sponsorship deals. Then comes the rent to our rivals which would barely be covered by the 'home' fans who are now expected to add an extra 120miles to their normal pittodrie trip (and thats only if they live in the city. Even more if they are coming from the shire.

 

Easter Road did not have the problem of developers building lots of new flats in such proximety. The roads around it are also much wider and none of their stands backed onto a main road. They also have a nice deal with the Albion trust to share the carpark behind their new main stand and also thumbed them a few quid in the process. And the other big plus for the hibees is they sold off several players for a few million each so could afford to pay for it all.

[Stewart]

http://www.afc.co.uk/articles/20120827/pittodrie-board-considers-its-options-_2212158_2902131

 

Following this afternoon's monthly Board meeting at Pittodrie Stadium, the Dons have confirmed they will use the next few weeks to investigate the options the Club has for its new home following last Wednesday's 'no' vote for the training facilities at Calder Park by Aberdeen City Council.

 

Dons Vice Chairman George Yule commented. "The Board agreed unanimously that the sensible way forward is for us to explore all realistic options available and that will include sitting down with both of the councils, City and Shire, to determine exactly what the current position is in terms of availability of suitable sites.

 

"Given the way matters have panned out, we have a significant amount of work to be undertaken and when all the initial due diligence of the alternative options have been carried out, and only after that period, will AFC be in a position to form a more definitive view of what the future is likely to hold for us in regard to stadium re-location opportunities.

 

"I can also confirm that since last week's vote we have received a number of unsolicited, but nevertheless welcome approaches from local private landowners wishing to assist the Club in its quest for a new stadium and while I am not in a position to be specific as to their locations at this point, I can assure our supporters that each of them will be fully considered on its merits and any decisions taken will be done in the best interests of AFC, our staff and our supporters.

 

"As I said last week, these are extremely challenging times for Scottish football and the stadium issue is yet another hurdle for us to overcome. However, everybody connected with the Club is absolutely resolved to ensuring the long term prosperity of AFC and, one way or another, that is something I'm confident we'll achieve going forward"

[Madbadteacher]

"I can also confirm that since last week's vote we have received a number of unsolicited, but nevertheless welcome approaches from local private landowners wishing to assist the Club in its quest for a new stadium and while I am not in a position to be specific as to their locations at this point, I can assure our supporters that each of them will be fully considered on its merits and any decisions taken will be done in the best interests of AFC, our staff and our supporters.

 

 

Stewartie? Trump? HMTQ?

[Stewart]

This is pretty much what we were told at the meeting yesterday.

[glasgow sheep]

This is pretty much what we were told at the meeting yesterday.

 

What else was said at the meeting?

[Kowalski]

Trump?

 

A stadium north of the city is a complete non-starter.

I don't have a problem with them looking at options in the Shire providing its near a train station.

 

But the main concern is, how long is this going to put the move back by now?  I was at a shareholders meeting about 10 years ago and we were told the main stand only had about 5 years of life left!?