The steep bowl design lof Birmingham City’s new stadium features 12 chimney-form towers, designed to echo the brickworks that once sat on the site and point towards how the hard-working people of Birmingham changed the world during the Industrial Revolution.
The chimneys — undoubtedly the biggest talking point — will
provide structural support for the roof while accommodating lifts and
staircases and helping with ventilation.
One tower will even include a lift to what is claimed will
be Birmingham’s highest bar, offering city-wide views. Once completed, they
will be viewed from 40 miles away.
Early reaction to the £1.2billion ($1.57bn) project from
locals has been largely positive, but considerably more mixed across the
country. Long-serving supporters of football clubs are sensitive to changes
around history and tradition, with a stadium move the most delicate issue, yet
the initial signs are that many Birmingham fans are on board.
The design includes seating as close to pitch level as the
regulations allow, plus two giant ‘walls’ behind either goal with a steeper
ascent than Everton and Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadiums. Other interesting
modern additions include a retractable roof with features that promise to be
acoustic-enhancing (and dampening for the away end).
The stadium is only a part of the bigger picture, though. It
will be housed at the Sports Quarter, a 135-acre site in East Birmingham,
purchased by Knighthead for £47million, with a 10,000-seat women’s stadium and
an 18,000-seat arena included, too. This is in addition to an elite
training centre for the men’s, women’s and academy teams, a facility for the
Blues Foundation, and 3million square feet of mixed-use for offices, hotels,
retail, entertainment and residential areas that will cost between £2billion
and £3bn.
The government’s pledge to build a tram line between the
city centre and the Sports Quarter as part of a £2.4bn boost to the West
Midlands transport network was also crucial to the plans. Wagner and his
Knighthead cohort would not have pressed on had they not received such
assurances but with the stars aligning, they see this as a transformative
project for the area.
To understand the scale of the Sports Quarter, it is
expected to be 55 acres bigger than Manchester City’s wide-ranging Etihad
Campus. With the chimneys standing above anything else, it will dominate the
Birmingham skyline and the aim is for it to be a 365-day operation.
Moving away from a stadium where so many memories have been
made will split opinions in the years ahead. It’s the finer details, such as
seat location, parking spaces, routes into the stadium and the anxiety around
change, that make some supporters nervous.
There’s a strong belief that they’ll have no problem filling
the stadium, based on the demand for tickets to the Vertu Trophy Final at
Wembley last season, which stretched past 75,000.
If Birmingham are as ambitious as they sound, and plan to
not only return to the Premier League but also start hunting down some of
football’s biggest teams, this new setup is essential. A state-of-the-art
stadium will significantly help the club’s long-term future.
Comments
Post a Comment