Pittodrie officially up for sale

[mizer]

http://www.business7.co.uk/features/business-profiles/2011/10/05/cbre-appointed-to-sell-pittodrie-106408-23469244/

 

Football ground officially up for sale

 

CBRE has been appointed to sell Aberdeen Football Club's Pittodrie Stadium.

 

The Dons are inviting offers for the 13.7 acre site - comprising the stadium and two car parks - as the club intends to move to a new purpose built home at Loirston Loch.

 

A masterplan to build 350 homes at Pittodrie was given planning permission in principle earlier this year.

 

Derren McRae, associate director of CBREs Aberdeen office, said: "We are delighted to have been instructed by Aberdeen Football Club to sell the Pittodrie Stadium site.

 

"This is the next stage in the relocation to the eagerly anticipated new arena at Loirston Loch.

 

"This excellent residential development site is extremely well located, situated close to the University of Aberdeen, the city centre together with the retail and leisure amenities at the beach.

 

"Aberdeen continues to benefit from a buoyant local economy, and we are witnessing a strong level of demand across all sectors of the property market.

Given the sites prime location in the city we anticipate keen developer interest from both a local and national level."

 

The club hopes to be operating from Loirston Loch by the start of the 2013/14 season but needs to raise £38 million to fund the new arena.

 

Duncan Fraser, Aberdeen FC chief executive, said: "While the sale of Pittodrie is the key element of our funding model for the new stadium at Loirston Loch, progress has also been made regarding the securing of naming rights.

 

"The other elements are the raising of fresh equity and, on the back of that, securing a mortgage.

 

"To that end, the major shareholders remain totally committed to contributing additional equity and while we will require further equity, we would hope that the sale value of Pittodrie together with the naming rights and a secured mortgage will mean that we will be more than 80 per cent there in terms of raising the £38m required for our new home."

 

Fraser and other members of the Aberdeen FC board will assess recommendations from CBRE to ensure the club gets "maximum value" for Pittodrie.

 

No guide price has been set.

 

[Penfold]

The RedWeb article mentions a nice "sub-group" consisting of the whole board apart from Mr Milne. Our property expert chairman obviously has his priorities on buying the land at the cheapest possible price for his other business, rather than being involved in trying to get the best possible price for AFC.

 

And how come the plans have houses on/blocking Pittodrie Street? Im sure the club said that road remaining in place was main stumbling block to any plans to develop the main stand?

[mizer]

The RedWeb article mentions a nice "sub-group" consisting of the whole board apart from Mr Milne. Our property expert chairman obviously has his priorities on buying the land at the cheapest possible price for his other business, rather than being involved in trying to get the best possible price for AFC.

 

And how come the plans have houses on/blocking Pittodrie Street? Im sure the club said that road remaining in place was main stumbling block to any plans to develop the main stand?

 

Think the road still goes through but they have changed the angle of it and a couple of corners

 

http://www.afc.co.uk/javaImages/f9/a2/0,,10284~10068729,00.jpg[/img]

[Edinburghdon]

The RedWeb article mentions a nice "sub-group" consisting of the whole board apart from Mr Milne. Our property expert chairman obviously has his priorities on buying the land at the cheapest possible price for his other business, rather than being involved in trying to get the best possible price for AFC.

 

And how come the plans have houses on/blocking Pittodrie Street? Im sure the club said that road remaining in place was main stumbling block to any plans to develop the main stand?

 

Pretty sure it would be a conflict of interests if milne got involved in the selling of the stadium. 

[mizer]

Anyone know the going rate for an acre of land in Aberdeen. Think its around 1m?

[tom_widdows]

The RedWeb article mentions a nice "sub-group" consisting of the whole board apart from Mr Milne. Our property expert chairman obviously has his priorities on buying the land at the cheapest possible price for his other business, rather than being involved in trying to get the best possible price for AFC.

 

And how come the plans have houses on/blocking Pittodrie Street? Im sure the club said that road remaining in place was main stumbling block to any plans to develop the main stand?

 

Football stadia have different requirements with regards to emergency vehicle access and also crowd dispersal. one of the reasons the RDS has that massive concourse.

 

Make the entire place residential and it changes the nature of the road infrastructure.

[McMaster]

Sad days!

Mind you I hear Livingston want to buy it as they reckon there is more chance of getting of getting a full house at Pittodrie than there is at Almondvale

[Kowalski]

I noticed last week that the three golf clubs are looking into jointly running the Broadhill Bar and hosting their golf clubs there, presumably with a view to closing down all three existing premises!? 

[tlg1903]

(tin hat on) As it is I dont really like pittodrie much as a ground  so i find it hard to mourn its forthcoming death.  Aesthetically it looks totally disjointed, I once heard a fan describe the ground as 3 bike sheds and the RDS and its hard to argue with this assessment.  Because of this its very hard to build any kind of atmosphere in the ground.  The majority of the noise from the RDS passes over the top of the ground rather than booming down on the pitch.  Add to this the roof of the south stand seems to me to be the wrong shape to amplify noise effectively.  All in

I like all of you have had good times at this ground but the ground itself had little to do with this.  All this said i would much rather redevelop pittodrie than move the home of afc outside the city especially as not much thought seems to have gone into the logistics of fans travel to and from the city centre.  Sadly this seems not to be an option though the cynic in me wonders if the club were not so debt ridden if this would still be the case.

[Tyrant]

So we Sell Pittodrie for £14m (roughly £1m per acre) and sell the naming rights. Then we need a mortgage (massive debt) and then we're 80% there? That leaves roughly another £7.6m to pull out of someone's arse (which will do doubt be secured against the new ground also?) and this is all before we've paid off our current debt? 

 

This new ground will fucking ruin us. And this makes me sadder than the ground actually being put up for sale.

 

Aye Pittodrie is a shithole but it has character. Sorry, TLG but the claims that the "noise" from the upper deck goes over the pitch and the angle of the South Stand roof is wrong are quite frankly worrying. These are not the cause of the lack of atmosphere. The lack of atmosphere is caused by Milne choking the life out of the club with his poor appointments, debt and subsequent spending cuts which tie the hands of our managers. I've been at Pittodrie plenty of times when it had a red-hot atmosphere. Anticipation mixed with positivity and a lot of fans make a good atmosphere - nothing else.

 

IMO my opinion a gleaming, generic new stadium will quell the atmosphere more than anyone else. Anyone been to Highbury and then the Emirates? Huge difference.

 

I'm not looking forward to this shitty new stadium one little bit. Don't even know if I'll go. [/rant]

 

FFS fuck sake Milne. I hate you. 

[Superstar Tradesman]

So we Sell Pittodrie for £14m (roughly £1m per acre) and sell the naming rights. Then we need a mortgage (massive debt) and then we're 80% there? That leaves roughly another £7.6m to pull out of someone's arse (which will do doubt be secured against the new ground also?) and this is all before we've paid off our current debt? 

 

This new ground will fucking ruin us. And this makes me sadder than the ground actually being put up for sale.

 

 

This is my main bone of contention.

 

We're being told we have no other viable option but to sell up and move on but not one person has came out to tell us how we're financing the replacement.

 

It's like the RDS saga three times over.

[tlg1903]

So we Sell Pittodrie for £14m (roughly £1m per acre) and sell the naming rights. Then we need a mortgage (massive debt) and then we're 80% there? That leaves roughly another £7.6m to pull out of someone's arse (which will do doubt be secured against the new ground also?) and this is all before we've paid off our current debt? 

 

This new ground will fucking ruin us. And this makes me sadder than the ground actually being put up for sale.

 

Aye Pittodrie is a shithole but it has character. Sorry, TLG but the claims that the "noise" from the upper deck goes over the pitch and the angle of the South Stand roof is wrong are quite frankly worrying. These are not the cause of the lack of atmosphere. The lack of atmosphere is caused by Milne choking the life out of the club with his poor appointments, debt and subsequent spending cuts which tie the hands of our managers. I've been at Pittodrie plenty of times when it had a red-hot atmosphere. Anticipation mixed with positivity and a lot of fans make a good atmosphere - nothing else.

 

IMO my opinion a gleaming, generic new stadium will quell the atmosphere more than anyone else. Anyone been to Highbury and then the Emirates? Huge difference.

 

I'm not looking forward to this shitty new stadium one little bit. Don't even know if I'll go. [/rant]

 

FFS fuck sake Milne. I hate you. 

 

I didn't say that was the cause of no atmosphere i just said that the set up makes it harder to build atmosphere.  In well over 100 trips to pittodrie i can think of only 3 or 4 games where the noise created by aberdeen fans has been really intimidating.  Its like trying to boil a pan of water without a lid on it.  You'll get there in the end but it takes so much more effort

[Tyrant]

Does it? I just stick the cooker on 5 and it boils in no time.

[tlg1903]

Does it? I just stick the cooker on 5 and it boils in no time.

[capitalsharpie]

With this news, I am now of the feeling that the critically ill patient is now slipping towards death.

 

I can express no joy at this news.

 

Fuck your nasty cheaply built generic lego replacement.

 

I hate stewart milne and what he has done to my football club.

[rocket_scientist]

With this news, I am now of the feeling that the critically ill patient is now slipping towards death.

 

I can express no joy at this news.

 

Fuck your nasty cheaply built generic lego replacement.

 

I hate stewart milne and what he has done to my football club.

Excellent post. Chris Chrichton's piece in the P & J today was also excellent. The heart of the essence of the club is being ripped out.

[rocket_scientist]

So we Sell Pittodrie for £14m (roughly £1m per acre) and sell the naming rights. Then we need a mortgage (massive debt) and then we're 80% there? That leaves roughly another £7.6m to pull out of someone's arse (which will do doubt be secured against the new ground also?) and this is all before we've paid off our current debt? 

 

This new ground will fucking ruin us. And this makes me sadder than the ground actually being put up for sale.

 

Aye Pittodrie is a shithole but it has character. Sorry, TLG but the claims that the "noise" from the upper deck goes over the pitch and the angle of the South Stand roof is wrong are quite frankly worrying. These are not the cause of the lack of atmosphere. The lack of atmosphere is caused by Milne choking the life out of the club with his poor appointments, debt and subsequent spending cuts which tie the hands of our managers. I've been at Pittodrie plenty of times when it had a red-hot atmosphere. Anticipation mixed with positivity and a lot of fans make a good atmosphere - nothing else.

 

IMO my opinion a gleaming, generic new stadium will quell the atmosphere more than anyone else. Anyone been to Highbury and then the Emirates? Huge difference.

 

I'm not looking forward to this shitty new stadium one little bit. Don't even know if I'll go. [/rant]

 

 

 

 

 

 

FFS fuck sake Milne. I hate you. 

Another good post. Was at Highbury twice and the Emirates once. The first had soul, the latter is soul-less. But you know it will be full every week. It CATERS for its customers and the customer demographics has changed considerably. We're not in London though. We don't have a city of millions on our doorstep. The Arsenal model isn't relevant to AFC. The Bolton, Middlesborough, Sunderland, Reading situations aren't really directly comparable either. Our situation has been driven for the wrong reasons and is therefore destined to fail. Unless he has a vision of the club's future well beyond my limited imagination and he was right all along.

 

[Kowalski]

I've heard nothing but good reports about the Emirates.

[Kowalski]

Bidding war likely as Dons put Pittodrie up for sale

 

By Ryan Crighton

 

Published: 06/10/2011

 

Aberdeen Football Club last night put Pittodrie Stadium up for sale – with club chairman Stewart Milne expected to trigger a multimillion-pound bidding war for the site.

 

The ground, which has been home to the Dons since 1903, will soon be replaced with neighbourhoods and communal gardens as the club prepares for its £38million move to a new 21,000-seat arena at Loirston Loch.

 

The Scottish Premier League side has planning permission to demolish Pittodrie and build 350 homes in its place.

 

The Press and Journal understands that Mr Milne, one of the UK’s most successful housebuilders, is already preparing a bid for the site, which is valued at £17million.

 

Loans of about £10million would have to be settled from the sale before the club can finalise its move to Cove.

 

I don't think that adds up! 

[mizer]

I am now of the feeling that the critically ill patient is now slipping towards death.

 

[BobbyBiscuit]

I've heard nothing but good reports about the Emirates.

 

It may well be a lovely stadium, but it is vapid. How many times have you watched a game on TV and thought "that looks like a cracking atmosphere there"?

[Tyrant]

I don't think that adds up! 

 

 

That's why we need a huge crippling mortgage.

[Kowalski]

It may well be a lovely stadium, but it is vapid. How many times have you watched a game on TV and thought "that looks like a cracking atmosphere there"?

 

Not many but I've certainly thought that I wouldn't mind visiting it.

[tlg1903]

Only time i can think of was the champions league game against man u for about ten minutes until park scored

[manc_don]

Only time i can think of was the champions league game against man u for about ten minutes until park scored

 

And the Barca game last season, those two games aside, the atmosphere is shocking. Craven Cottage is better