New stadium vs redeveloping UP vs OS

[ekavall]

I somewhat think the the discussion have been lost a bit regarding what possibilities there are when coming to the future of where WH will have it's home.

After looking at some of the figures circulating I just can't get the idéa of constructing a new purpose built West Ham stadium out of my head.

Figures mentioned for getting the OS ready for football is about £100 m. A big chunk would probably have to be paid by the club.

When building on the Parcelforce site there was talk about £200m for building for 50 000 (possible to extend to 60 000). £15 to buy the land. =£215m. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_West_Ham_Stadium" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looking at the cost estimated for the new Spuds arena estimated at £300-350 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/8893218/Tottenham-owners-make-club-private-in-a-bid-to-boost-financial-backing-for-new-stadium.html


Income: Selling UP for £40m (just a figure Ive head, not sure at all about it)
Maybe some sort of help from Newham county and/or the city of London.

When looking at the new richest list for UK D&D seem to have a wealth of around £800-850 together. If they could find someone buying the 35% that the Icelandics still have ?(luring back Tony Fernandes or "The Intermarket group" (who ever they are...) they could have a brand new arena for less than £100m each. Calculate building it together with a big hotel and entertainment centre/mall the price could come down quite a lot. Closeness to Canary Wharf and London City airport might help out. All revenue would go to the club, 100% of the naming rights as well.

Am I being naive or isn't this a possible scenario? Sure, I might be a bit blind realizing how much money this really is, but anyway.. As fans David Gold and David Sullivan would put their names in West Ham history for decades to come. Not that they haven't already but this would be something else, wouldn't it?


This is my dream. And I'm sure most fans are with me on this one.

[Bobby Orangeboom]

Where would the location be of a new Stadium to get Newham Council to help ?

[Luke (THFC)]

Looking at the cost estimated for the new Spuds arena estimated at £300-350 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/8893218/Tottenham-owners-make-club-private-in-a-bid-to-boost-financial-backing-for-new-stadium.html

FYI - the 'stadium only' cost of the proposed new Spurs stadium is £250 million.

[Luke (THFC)]

Where would the location be of a new Stadium to get Newham Council to help ?

The Parcelforce site was the one that was mooted previously wasn't it? How is that site for ease of access, transport etc?

[ekavall]

Where would the location be of a new Stadium to get Newham Council to help ?

The jury is still out on that one. If there would be serious interest in such a project I'm sure it could be solved. With positive minds anything can be done.

[I am Lawro]

My two penneth on this whole situation:

1) If we could move into the Olympic Stadium on the terms originally agreed upon, then it would be an excellent opportunity to develop the stature and revenue of the club. With us in full operational control of the stadium/revenue, there would have been numerous opportunities (such as allowing Essex Cricket Club play there etc.) to allow the club to generate significantly more revenue than it currently creates. The transport links and tourism would have helped to bulk out the crowd, and we may have been able attract a wider fan base. However, on the current terms, these benefits shrink significantly, and the fact we would not own our own stadium probably tilts the balance in favour of not moving there.

2) If we were to build a new 50-60,000 seat stadium, where are the extra 15-25000 fans coming from? I do not think our attendance would increase that dramatically just by building a new stadium, so the prospect of playing in a stadium that is 2/3 full most weeks and a debt of £300 million may seem too much to pay just for the sake of having a sparkly new stadium.

3) It could be possible to develop and fill the Boleyn to around 42-45000, but I'd imagine this would involve cutting ticket prices so increased revenue would be minimal, and the local transport would probably implode with an extra 10,000 people travelling to and from the stadium each week.

Overall, I think the money is better off spent elsewhere i.e. improving our, quite frankly, **** training facilities, expanding our global scouting network or investing heavily in the academy, trying to make a positive out of this "Elite Player Performance Plan" bull****.

[Pop Robson]

The Parcelforce site was the one that was mooted previously wasn't it? How is that site for ease of access, transport etc?

Jubilee Line, District, Docklands and the Greenway for pedestrians and cyclists

Bus garage there now, but plenty of land to the South of it, depends what's there.

It's all talk as it was back then

[Hammer110]

Figures mentioned for getting the OS ready for football is about £100 m. A big chunk would probably have to be paid by the club.

Why? The only thing the OPLC have said we would have to pay for is retractable seating, most of the work that needs to be done will have to be done to make it into a permanent arena who ever moves in and when the new process was announced the Minister said they would spend the £90-100 million of public money to adapt it for post games usage.

The Daves will IMHO be unwilling to put much more in the O/S than the the cost of some claret & blue paint and signs ect.

[adie]

at David Gold's forum when asked about the stadium being claret n blue he said it wasn't important

[Pop Robson]

at David Gold's forum when asked about the stadium being claret n blue he said it wasn't important

As long as it was cheap

[Iron-worx]

When looking at the new richest list for UK D&D seem to have a wealth of around £800-850

There's quite some difference between being worth 800-850M between them and their having 200M conveniently sitting somewhere ready to spend....

And an even bigger difference between having it ready to spend and wanting to spend it on a football stadium...

Those sorts of figures while they can be written down quickly are absolutely enormous....

That's the value in the OS, it's a hell of a stadium for the outlay whatever anybody might think about the rest of it.

[hammersk]

UP will not be re-developed.
The costs of doing so are prohibitive and the upside minimal.

Any talk of "re-development" from Gold/Brady/Sullivan is purely with a view to negotiating a better deal for the OS.

Stands capacity

Trevor Brooking 6,000 what a waste of time and money this redevelopment was
Alpari 15,000
East 5,000
Bobby Moore 9,000
Total 35,000

BEST CASE SCENARIO
Trevor Brooking 6,000
Alpari 15,000
New East 15,000
Bobby Moore 9,000
Cornering 5,000 max (lower tiers are already cornered between the 3 largest stands)
Total 50,000

1. Costs more to develop 50k stadium upgrade than to move into a brand new 60k stadium
2. Massive loss of revenue when you have to play whilst re-developing stands?
3. Local infrastructure can't cope

[the pink palermo]

Edit .

[Iron-worx]

BEST CASE SCENARIO
Trevor Brooking 6,000
Alpari 15,000
New East 15,000
Bobby Moore 9,000
Cornering 5,000 max (lower tiers are already cornered between the 3 largest stands)
Total 50,000

1. Costs more to develop 50k stadium upgrade than to move into a brand new 60k stadium
2. Massive loss of revenue when you have to play whilst re-developing stands?
3. Local infrastructure can't cope

4. Size of gate needs planning consent and the highest that will be at the Boleyn without vastly improved local infrastructure is 42'322 which was the all time record attendance v the filth in 1970 - Build it as big as you like and they can't come.

[Aztec Hammer]

In reality, the only possible way I can ever see us being a club capable of winning trophies and playing in Europe regularly is through moving into the OS.

This is for one potential reason that many seem to overlook. Football has undoubtedly been ruined by money. How we have not even considered some form of a salary cap is beyond me (but that's another debate completely). The fact that Man City or Chelsea can pay a single player more than the entire Swansea or Wigan squad are paid means that it is almost guaranteed that no club outside of City, Chelsea or Man United will win the league anytime soon without being taken over by billionaires. Tottenham have played out of their skins this year and built an amazing team (kills me to say it) over the last few years through a sustainable approach of buying young and developing, and yet they still cannot push beyond 3rd and mount a really serious title challenge.

As much as I hate what it is, the only way that we will ever really push on and compete for trophies is if we are taken over by the mega-rich billionaire types like those at City and Chelsea.

And the only way I see anyone like that being interested in taking us on is if we play at the Olympic Stadium. Foreign billionaires that have money to play with and are free-spending types are by nature, attracted to grandeur and legacy. Playing in the stadium that hosted the momentous 2012 London Olympic where Usain Bolt ran the fastest 100m in world history could be the clincher for the generic overzealous, extravagant billionaire.

I guess the real question is, do we as fans, want West Ham to be the next Man City?

[adie]

a football club without a home isn't that appealing to a billionaire, under the first bid where we would have managed the stadium and been the benefactor of the naming rights and other corporate sponsorship deals, yeah we would of been a good catch. As David Gold said we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, only that horse has turned on us and now we are looking straight up it's arse.

[westham,eggyandchips]

In reality, the only possible way I can ever see us being a club capable of winning trophies and playing in Europe regularly is through moving into the OS.

Really? Ask some Arsenal fans if they agree with those sentiments.

[Pop Robson]

Really? Ask some Arsenal fans if they agree with those sentiments.

Plenty of them would rather be back at Highbury, still at least they ain't got an olympic running track round the pitch and a stadium desinged for athletics.



Yes I do know the stand are quite far from the pitch at Emirates

[dapablo]

the weels on the bus go...

[Aztec Hammer]

Really? Ask some Arsenal fans if they agree with those sentiments.

Maybe you are misunderstanding my personal views towards the OS. I live on the edge of the Olympic Park so it would be an ideal location for me. And yet I do not want to move to the OS under the current conditions.

But that was the whole point of my post. That money has ruined football so much so that in this billionaire football club owners era, it is highly unlikely that any team that has owners that do not have endless streams of cash will win the league

Tell me, which teams were run by billionaire owners with money to play with whilst Arsenal were at Highbury? The moment Abramovich took over, Arsenal stopped winning anything. Arsenal won trophies before then because their squad (one of the most expensive in the league at the time) did not have clubs like City and Chelsea with unlimited funds to compete with.

Times have changed, whether we like it or not, (I don't like it), and it pains me to say it but we'd definitely have more of a chance of success if we moved to the OS. Then again, the problem is, under the current conditions we'd probably also have more of a chance of failure. That's why this whole situation is gash.

If the OPLC, the government, Seb Coe... whoever it is exactly, could just own up and admit that the legacy is not viable, we'd have the perfect situation. Olympic Stadium, 60k seats, no running track, owned by us providing economic opportunities and the most sustainable arrangement for the area. Build a more modest and relevant sized athletics stadium nearby. Give the Hockey stadium to Orient and tell them to bore off.

Typical of this country to turn opportunities like this into vanity projects. What exactly is that ugly red rollercoaster I have to look at everytime I go to work? What a joke.