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TIL 1010

Stadium Expansion Latest.

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At the NCFSC forum last night following a question from the audience regarding increased capacity Ben Kensell stated that the Club had just completed the purchase of the parcel of land that is between Koblenz Avenue and Carrow Road running the length of the City Stand. This is the very first step that had to be taken for the club to redevelop the stand. Carrow Road itself immediately outside the old main entrance is owned by the Council and the next step is for the club to adopt it and no indication of timescale was given before work can begin to build above and back from the current stand.

It is at a very early stage and may well not happen anytime soon with naturally finance being the biggest issue but nothing can be progressed until the two issues i have mentioned have been addressed. The question of another Bond scheme to help fund it was suggested from the audience and Zoe Ward said that naturally it would be looked at but was non committal. Many issues to be considered including not being able to move 3,000 season tickets holders while work is carried out as no capacity elsewhere in the stadium to relocate.

So in a nutshell obviously a lot going on behind the scenes to make it all happen and as for the old chestnut of getting rid of the hotel it cannot happen as the lease the hotel has still has ' many, many years to run ' according to BK. The decision back in the day to allow it to be built was because to club was in desperate financial trouble and at the time it was the right decision to make.

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Seems to be a lot of things have been issued, not sure who by but as long as there are no problems that is fine.

As to the hotel lease it was 150 years so there's a bit to go yet, I'm afraid.

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13 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

As I have stated before, a tier behind the existing stand can be constructed...no need to relocate season ticket holders....when all the other issues have been dealt with 

Thanks for the update 

It may be technically feasible but that doesn't mean that doing this is the best option. 

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8 minutes ago, Bill said:

Seems to be a lot of things have been issued, not sure who by but as long as there are no problems that is fine.

As to the hotel lease it was 150 years so there's a bit to go yet, I'm afraid.

Other things could happen long before that though, we could purchase the lease to the hotel... or Holiday Inn could go into administration or put it up for sale. 

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2 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Other things could happen long before that though, we could purchase the lease to the hotel... or Holiday Inn could go into administration or put it up for sale. 

I think it's a lease on the land we would need to putchase - an 'eyesore' I think most would agree but a physical testament that we, unlike some cubs, pay our way and don't expect to ponce off others ..................'cough' , 'cough'

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20 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

As I have stated before, a tier behind the existing stand can be constructed...no need to relocate season ticket holders....when all the other issues have been dealt with 

Thanks for the update 

I'm sure it could but as previously discussed many times on here and it might be cheaper but would it be the best long term option ?

If the green light was given immediately by the time another modern second tier is added the original City Stand would be nigh on 40 years old having opened in 1986. It's looking it's age and modern stadia have far more legroom and circulation space. Compared to the South Stand it feels cramped.

With lower attendances there wasn't much of a problem accommodating supporters who were turfed out of their seats when that was rebuilt but it would be a nightmare now trying to shoehorn City Stand dwellers in to other parts of the ground.

There's no easy solution.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, ......and Smith must score. said:

There's no easy solution.

Raise the ticket prices that will reduce demand - as does relegation

However the bottom line is that an extra 4000 seats on top of the main stand would only increase capacity by 14% which on current take would only add a maximum of £1.6m in ticket income - assuming 100% capacity for every game

not enough to pay the interest on the loan required

Edited by Bill
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I think the hotel - eyesore though it is - has always been a bit of a red herring if the aim is to increase capacity by at least 3,000, and any number less than that would not seem worth doing. As I understand it you would not get  near to that number of extra seats in that corner infill, and  such seats are also more expensive to build than a straight-line stand.

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5 minutes ago, Bill said:

Raise the ticket prices that will reduce demand - as does relegation

However the bottom line is that an extra 4000 seats on top of the main stand would only increase capacity by 14% which on current take would only add a maximum of £1.6m in ticket income - assuming 100% capacity for every game

not enough to pay the interest on the loan required

How much do you think an upper tier is going to cost? I've genuinely no idea but the South Stand was £8 million. Adding a tier comes with technical difficulties and inflation has to be factored in, but even if you double the construction costs of the South Stand to £16 million for 4,000 more seats then they'd need to be paying 10% interest on the loan for it to cost them £1.6 million a year. Surely NCFC can get a much cheaper rate of borrowing than that? 

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6 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Surely NCFC can get a much cheaper rate of borrowing than that? 

10% is maybe a little steep, but I don’t think football clubs are seen as models of financial stability at the moment, so I doubt we’d be at the head of the queue for banks to throw money at. I seem to remember a football club somewhere not a million miles away getting into financial difficulty?

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Building up behind the existing stand was always going to be the long term solution, bringing it up to the level of the other stands and improving the acoustics/atmosphere in the stadium.  

Going to Burnley was an interesting trip just to see their stadium and the way they have kept the old low main stand and built a two tier stand on the other side - and it just looks wrong. Also interesting at Burnley was the corner infill where they have put in balconies on the building in the corner to connect it to the stadium. This is something I have long advocated and could be done in conjunction with the hotel.  Yes, I know there is a screen there now which is an issue, but there are ways to improve the hotel corner visually and to incorporate it into the matchday experience. 

image.thumb.png.eceb6476a531a87095da0329dd92c2ee.png

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10 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

  Yes, I know there is a screen there now which is an issue

did we get issued with a big screen, if so who issued it ?

 

ps anyone who wants a ticket now could have bought an ST at the end of season 2017/18

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1 hour ago, ......and Smith must score. said:

I'm sure it could but as previously discussed many times on here and it might be cheaper but would it be the best long term option ?

If the green light was given immediately by the time another modern second tier is added the original City Stand would be nigh on 40 years old having opened in 1986. It's looking it's age and modern stadia have far more legroom and circulation space. Compared to the South Stand it feels cramped.

With lower attendances there wasn't much of a problem accommodating supporters who were turfed out of their seats when that was rebuilt but it would be a nightmare now trying to shoehorn City Stand dwellers in to other parts of the ground.

There's no easy solution.

 

 

build a tier behind the existing one....move the ST´s in to it....refurbish the existing tier

Maybe that works?

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33 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

maybe not...possibly best option for retaining the season ticket holders, though?

How many season ticket holders are there in the city stand? About 3000?

Because there's about 1500 casual tickets each game... So give them all 50 percent of the games for a season, for half the price of their usual season ticket, then a nice 25 percent off for a season and first dibs on seats in the new stand. 

Yes they will be a bit annoyed but they will get respect for their sacrifice to help ensure our status as a club with Premier League credentials.

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38 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

build a tier behind the existing one....move the ST´s in to it....refurbish the existing tier

Maybe that works?

Want to repeat that idea for a third time? 

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35 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

build a tier behind the existing one....move the ST´s in to it....refurbish the existing tier

Maybe that works?

Sounds good on paper but I wonder if the lower tier can be altered to fit the expanding population without losing too many seats.

There were a lot less Mr Creosotes back in the 80’s.......😀

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2 hours ago, TIL 1010 said:

At the NCFSC forum last night following a question from the audience regarding increased capacity Ben Kensell stated that the Club had just completed the purchase of the parcel of land that is between Koblenz Avenue and Carrow Road running the length of the City Stand. This is the very first step that had to be taken for the club to redevelop the stand. Carrow Road itself immediately outside the old main entrance is owned by the Council and the next step is for the club to adopt it and no indication of timescale was given before work can begin to build above and back from the current stand.

It is at a very early stage and may well not happen anytime soon with naturally finance being the biggest issue but nothing can be progressed until the two issues i have mentioned have been addressed. The question of another Bond scheme to help fund it was suggested from the audience and Zoe Ward said that naturally it would be looked at but was non committal. Many issues to be considered including not being able to move 3,000 season tickets holders while work is carried out as no capacity elsewhere in the stadium to relocate.

So in a nutshell obviously a lot going on behind the scenes to make it all happen and as for the old chestnut of getting rid of the hotel it cannot happen as the lease the hotel has still has ' many, many years to run ' according to BK. The decision back in the day to allow it to be built was because to club was in desperate financial trouble and at the time it was the right decision to make.

Thanks for that. Interesting that the the club is making these preliminary moves, even if there are no concrete (?) plans on the horizon. I have no idea what it will have cost to buy the land but presumably affordable.

I am not sure it would be impossible to relocate 3,000 fans, if a new tier could not be built while the existing one was in place. If we have 21,500 season ticket holders now out of a capacity of 27,200 that would leave about 2,700 casual and away seats.

Certainly not many casual tickets to go around and we might need a dispensation to cut the away allocation, but that would be allowed. As to finance, I would be surprised, if this ever comes about, if the club ends up funding the cost entirely from outside commercial borrowing.

Perhaps a nest egg built up over several seasons and even another bond issue or similar  to reduce the borrowing. In the long run, as the South Stand has shown (down in League One some of the extra capacity from that stand was bringing in money all through the season) even under the most realistic/pessimistic predictions, increasing capacity by 3;000 or 4,000 would be profitable.

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1 hour ago, Nuff Said said:

10% is maybe a little steep, but I don’t think football clubs are seen as models of financial stability at the moment, so I doubt we’d be at the head of the queue for banks to throw money at. I seem to remember a football club somewhere not a million miles away getting into financial difficulty?

Lenders will judge on a case by case basis. They won't turn their nose up at a debt free, well-run football club that owns their stadium because another club 40 miles away fleeced their creditors out of millions. 

I suspect we'd get a very decent rate in the current climate. 

Alternatively we run a bond scheme which costs what, 5%? Not sure if would bring in enough for the project mind you. Part bond, part loan? 

Or we wind up funding it through player sales; Godfrey, Aarons and Buendia are probably worth more than a brand new stadium. 

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Depends on how quickly the club wants to wait before work begins. We might well be back in the Championship with a fall in demand, especially from away fans with a significant drop in income.

One way to create space for relocation of the currency City Stand dwellers would be to adopt a natural wastage approach. If any season ticket holder no longer requires their seat then it is not sold to a new season ticket holder, but is added the casual ticket pool. In addition to cutting the away fan allocation I think the "3000" could relocated relatively easily.

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8 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

Depends on how quickly the club wants to wait before work begins. We might well be back in the Championship with a fall in demand, especially from away fans with a significant drop in income.

One way to create space for relocation of the currency City Stand dwellers would be to adopt a natural wastage approach. If any season ticket holder no longer requires their seat then it is not sold to a new season ticket holder, but is added the casual ticket pool. In addition to cutting the away fan allocation I think the "3000" could relocated relatively easily.

We have to give 10 percent of our current capacity to away fans so closing the city stand would only reduce away allocation by what... 300?

There are about 1200 casual tickets so that would give us 1500.... Still a long way off 3000.

Should think it would take a good 3 years of shrinkage to close the gap. 

Although personally I think the rest should just take one for the team for a year, then get a 30 percent discount off their season ticket in the fancy new stand as a thank you. 

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11 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

Depends on how quickly the club wants to wait before work begins. We might well be back in the Championship with a fall in demand, especially from away fans with a significant drop in income.

One way to create space for relocation of the currency City Stand dwellers would be to adopt a natural wastage approach. If any season ticket holder no longer requires their seat then it is not sold to a new season ticket holder, but is added the casual ticket pool. In addition to cutting the away fan allocation I think the "3000" could relocated relatively easily.

In conjunction with TeemuVanBastens idea, that could work even quicker.

Expansion still looks to be several years away 

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2 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

I think the hotel - eyesore though it is - has always been a bit of a red herring if the aim is to increase capacity by at least 3,000, and any number less than that would not seem worth doing. As I understand it you would not get  near to that number of extra seats in that corner infill, and  such seats are also more expensive to build than a straight-line stand.

We could have mitigated that cost by integrating a hotel into the design, corner stand with hotel rooms above it. Could have been mint. 

I'd have at least hoped for a hotel which looked like it was part of the stadium, rather than one which looked like we got skint and sold off a corner of our ground to property developers. 

We take the **** out of Ipswich for not owning Portman Road. Selling off a corner of Carrow Road for a pittance was a travesty. 

It would be nice if that hotel got a bit run down and Holiday Inn decided to discard it someday, we could then buy it back and demolish it.

A corner stand might not be a great value investment but it would be good for our soul and probably good for the atmosphere.... Those would be cracking seats in between the Barclay and the away fans. 

Edited by TeemuVanBasten

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Didn't realise away allocation was as a high as 10%. Do we really get about 7500 tickets for Old Trafford? 

Anyway a season ticket loan/buy back scheme might help bridge the gap. I realise the club already does this on a game by game basis but for a piffling £10 credit it's hardly worth the effort. There may be some fans who can't or don't want to commit for and entire season who may be willing to give up their seat during the transition period.

 

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8 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

It's only 10% up to 30,000 capacity. Higher than that it's capped at 3,000.

Spot on Nutty.

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