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Stadium and training ground back on agenda


GregyScotland
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Aberdeen have pushed back the entry date for their new proposed stadium because the revenue they expected for selling pittodrie has fallen due to house prices in the area, according to sports sound yesterday. I’d imagine we’d be in the same situation if we tried to sell fir park 

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17 minutes ago, si91 said:

Aberdeen have pushed back the entry date for their new proposed stadium because the revenue they expected for selling pittodrie has fallen due to house prices in the area, according to sports sound yesterday. I’d imagine we’d be in the same situation if we tried to sell fir park 

Aberdeen have pushed ahead with securing planning permission and building (?) without having the cash in place to pay for it...just £50m short. I doubt if we would be so bold as to push ahead so quickly until we had the financial wherewithal to actually pay for it.

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The question around timing of this announcement is an interesting one that I think deserves more discussion. 

Is there an upcoming maintenance cost and/or issue obtaining a safety certificate that might hasten any potential move? Or has our already generous benefactor indicated he is  willing to assist with financing?

Personally, as a fan owned club, I think a potential move to a bespoke new ground (i.e. chosen by the fans for the fans) offers endless possibilities that could see us being the envy of every  club in Scotland.  The incorporation of safe standing for both home and away fans, for example,  would be a major selling point.

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The reason this question is being raised now may usa be the obvious one. We have paid off the main debt and now weave to look to the future. Do we spend future funds on renovating our current home, or do we look at alternatives. Seems sensible to look at all the options and then make a decision. It will come down to what is achievable within our limited budget.

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12 hours ago, si91 said:

Aberdeen have pushed back the entry date for their new proposed stadium because the revenue they expected for selling pittodrie has fallen due to house prices in the area, according to sports sound yesterday. I’d imagine we’d be in the same situation if we tried to sell fir park 

Not really. Houses in that area of Motherwell sell well and quickly. People want Knowetop and Dalziel catchment. 

 

 

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16 hours ago, weeyin said:

The idea that we can afford to move into some bespoke stadium is pure fantasy.  I doubt we could afford a St Mirren style effort even if we sold Fir Park 

How did St Midden afford their Stadium then?

We dont need to buy a stadium outright, there will be a multi year mortgage along with any money from the sale of Fir Park. The big question is the size of mortgage the board would be willing to take on! The bigger that amount the bigger/better the stadium

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10 hours ago, weeyin said:

Dedicated training facilities, particularly for the winter training sessions, would certainly make sense.

If we,re not likely to move from Fir Park I wonder how feasible it would be and how much it would cost to buid an indoor facility on the astro behind the East stand. Certainly looks big enough to do something like that.

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I reckon we'd be looking at a stadia with a capacity of 7 or 8K. That's when it eventually happens in about 20 years.

It's the sharing with Airdrie or Hamilton in the homeless period I would be worried about.

 

Having said that, I doubt we have money for a new stadium and we certainly don't have money to refurb the 3 stands that are shite.

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17 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I reckon we'd be looking at a stadia with a capacity of 7 or 8K. That's when it eventually happens in about 20 years.

It's the sharing with Airdrie or Hamilton in the homeless period I would be worried about.

 

Having said that, I doubt we have money for a new stadium and we certainly don't have money to refurb the 3 stands that are shite.

Not really a worry if it’s that long, I will probably be dead by then.

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OK to clear a few things, just because I've been exposed to this chat 10 years ago when it was last muted at a senior level.

Also in the intervening 10 years a lot has been learned from the likes of St Mirren and Falkirk. Tynecastle has always got a good rep due to the steepness and it would probably be a hybrid of that if and when we could secure a move.

The club learned a lot from our European forays especially the way that Aaelsund and Odense were set up. Aaelsund's stadium in particular got some strong support from people who are now running the club without additional barriers to decision making that existed in the past.

Here is the rub. The ground was zoned as recreational back in the 90's (I think) and the council also wrote in that designations couldn't be changed. Now that poses a problem for a housing or retail development. It would be met with particular hostility from the public and some in the council. A move is also only possible if the FP site can be sold for a decent amount.

The council are keen for a move to Ravenscraig to highlight the area and inject some oomph to a project that has largely stalled with fleeting spurts of building. Part of the reason for that is South Lanarkshire Council were concerned that it's two major shopping centres in Hamilton and EK would lose business from the North Lanarkshire area and got CGNU who own both shopping centres (or they did) to lodge complaints citing brownfield/greenbelt/environmental/urban regeneration and it did enough to kick the ball into the long grass. SLC had to do it via a proxy as it was ultimately another Labour held council and that would not be cool if they did it themselves.

The planned redevelopment in Muirhouse hit the skids when I understand the club were surprised at the amount of local objections. That to me seems mad as two blaze pitches replaced with a custom facility would enhance the area. Maybe it was floodlight glare.

So in summary, can we all stop with the hyperbole and scaremongering about the possibility of a lazily planned stadium. The next person on here who utters "lego" is summarily shot and understand the likelihood of a move is dependent on a massive cash injection which I don't see any evidence of. So it will be FP, wooden construction, leaky roof and all for the forseeable.

 

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7 hours ago, Shaka said:

How did St Midden afford their Stadium then?

We dont need to buy a stadium outright, there will be a multi year mortgage along with any money from the sale of Fir Park. The big question is the size of mortgage the board would be willing to take on! The bigger that amount the bigger/better the stadium

St Mirren don't have a mortgage. They sold their old ground to Tesco at peak market for £15 million. The state of supermarkets' finances these days make that an unlikely option.

They built their new ground for £8 million. A classic square steel box with cramped seats.

I might be on my own here, but I don't want any of my 'Well Society contributions being spent on a loan to pay off something like that.

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1 hour ago, Goggles & Flippers said:

The planned redevelopment in Muirhouse hit the skids when I understand the club were surprised at the amount of local objections. That to me seems mad as two blaze pitches replaced with a custom facility would enhance the area. Maybe it was floodlight glare.

So in summary, can we all stop with the hyperbole and scaremongering about the possibility of a lazily planned stadium. The next person on here who utters "lego" is summarily shot and understand the likelihood of a move is dependent on a massive cash injection which I don't see any evidence of. So it will be FP, wooden construction, leaky roof and all for the forseeable.

 

Hearts are a good marker for current costings. Their stand upgrade cost £15 million (plus 3 million for surrounding infrastructure upgrades).  It's nothing to do with "lazy design" - just cold, hard economics that says we'd struggle to afford anything more than a shoebox, subbuteo, special (with no "L" word required).

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6 minutes ago, weeyin said:

Hearts are a good marker for current costings. Their stand upgrade cost £15 million (plus 3 million for surrounding infrastructure upgrades).  It's nothing to do with "lazy design" - just cold, hard economics that says we'd struggle to afford anything more than a shoebox, subbuteo, special (with no "L" word required).

As stated before the  York community stadium plus extras has hit 44million. That’s 8500 so hardly huge. I think people will be genuinely shocked at the figures quoted for any new stadium.

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10 hours ago, Yorkyred said:

As stated before the  York community stadium plus extras has hit 44million. That’s 8500 so hardly huge. I think people will be genuinely shocked at the figures quoted for any new stadium.

The majority of that is Land Price & adjoining development!  And Hearts Main Stand shows why we will never redevelop our own at Fir Park! It cost a fortune due to extra constraints put on it due to its location in the middle of town.

I know the club made a lot of Noise at the time about their trips to Aalesund and Odense and so design ideas would be different I would imagine, but a decent 10k stadium would be achieveable as long as we got land at a decent cost and were able to offset some of the expenditure with selling FP. Even adding to that, You could be looking at selling the Naming Rights and hosting a couple of Summer Concerts which between then could raise £500k a year and pretty much cover any decent Mortgage payment. 

And while I understand worries over groundsharing, If we boxed smart. A stadium at Ravenscraig would fly through planning and could be built very quickly with it being cleared and dead flat to start with. Whereas planning and setup for a Supermarket or homes (assuming there was a change of use) would take longer so there could be a possibility of moving straight from Fir Park to the New Ground, or at most a season at Airdrie. Theres a lot for the Club to think about and explore, but its certainly doable.

The trade off is how long we can afford to stay at Fir Park, chucking hundreds of thousands of pounds at a ground that will only ever deteriorate every summer to just make it habitable

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15 hours ago, weeyin said:

Hearts are a good marker for current costings. Their stand upgrade cost £15 million (plus 3 million for surrounding infrastructure upgrades).  It's nothing to do with "lazy design" - just cold, hard economics that says we'd struggle to afford anything more than a shoebox, subbuteo, special (with no "L" word required).

Is it hard being right all the time? I mean surely it must get a bit boring pontificating from your pulpit to all the plebs?

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On 11/4/2019 at 8:05 PM, Goggles & Flippers said:

The ground was zoned as recreational back in the 90's (I think) and the council also wrote in that designations couldn't be changed. Now that poses a problem for a housing or retail development. It would be met with particular hostility from the public and some in the council. A move is also only possible if the FP site can be sold for a decent amount.

The council are keen for a move to Ravenscraig to highlight the area and inject some oomph to a project that has largely stalled with fleeting spurts of building. Part of the reason for that is South Lanarkshire Council were concerned that it's two major shopping centres in Hamilton and EK would lose business from the North Lanarkshire area and got CGNU who own both shopping centres (or they did) to lodge complaints citing brownfield/greenbelt/environmental/urban regeneration and it did enough to kick the ball into the long grass. SLC had to do it via a proxy as it was ultimately another Labour held council and that would not be cool if they did it themselves.

The Local Development Plan zoning is, as you say, for communuity facilities or whatever the current term is, but that is not sacrosanct and can be overruled in certain circumstances.  It can also be changed in future iterations. Public opinion,  is not the deciding factor in planning; it is the weight of the argument but yes, politics does play a part. That said many locals living near Fir Park might prefer housing to the current football land use. Is Fir Park a bad neighbour development?

I'm sure too that NLC would like to reclaim a good proportion of its retail expenditure from its neighbours across the Clyde but as we all know retailing and town centres are undergoing a seismic shift in the light of online competition.

I'm sure NLC and the owners of Ravenscraig would love MFC to move there although no doubt the residents would not. The Council would assist MFC in any way it could; I'm confident of that.  In short, I don't think planning, at least in principle, would be an obstacle to a move to Ravenscraig.

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