Putting another tier on the Park End

Status
Not open for further replies.

BoysInBlue

Player Valuation: £50m
This is often suggested as part of a solution to our stadium woes. Whilst it most likely wouldn't really address our main issues, it's something that should have been done a long time ago. The original plans for the Park End were for it to be a two tier stand, until Peter Johnson nixed the idea and went with the cheaper option. A two tier Park End would at least boost capacity by a few thousand, and probably even more crucially increase our executive box facilties (double or tripling our revenue in that area, at least), something the club is crying out for.

Anyway, I bring this up after visiting Wolves yesterday, and basically seeing for myself what they have done - adding another tier on to their own version of the Park End. These are two photos of the same stand, one from March 2010 when we played them, and one from yesterday:

24cgsq0.jpg


8zo7wn.jpg


There wasn't much space taken up behind the stand either, by construction. There was a small construction area, but nothing major. The ticket offices had been moved to the side, in temporary portacabins. As you can see, the lower tier was already open, with the top tier opening in August. The new stand is costing Wolves £18m to build, and includes new museum, supporters bar and megastore. Capacity is being boosted from 27000 to 31000.

Just thought this was interesting. Obviously there's no new stadium on the horizon. So rather than continue to do nothing, which is effectively what the current board is doing, and us continuing to follow the model of selling one star each summer to keep the banks sweet, and rely on Moyes' managerial abilities to keep us in the top half, I think doing something like this would be of far greater benefit in the long run. I'm sure most people would rather we have a super duper new stadium, but if we can't have that, we should be settling for the next best thing in stadium redevelopment - which is possible (as shown above, being done by other clubs), no matter what Elstone says.
 
Expanding our stadium would do nothing other than cost us a lot of money. It wouldn't mean our attendances would go up. Have we even sold out this year?

A new stadium is the only way to move forward as it reduces costs long term
 
It can be done at the Park End. The only problem is there's no will to make it happen. The board of directors wont deviate from Plan A: let a retail giant and local government build a stadium for them somewhere in the Merseyside area and then cash in on a quick sale.

That's the type of scum who control our destiny.
 
I think good, reasoned arguments are there for both expanding the Park End and moving. If, for argument's sake, we were to spend £18million on the Park End, we could earn a lot more money from corporate and hospitality, but we would be tying ourselves into a long-haul revamp of Goodison. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the Park End is the easy bit.
 
This is often suggested as part of a solution to our stadium woes. Whilst it most likely wouldn't really address our main issues, it's something that should have been done a long time ago. The original plans for the Park End were for it to be a two tier stand, until Peter Johnson nixed the idea and went with the cheaper option. A two tier Park End would at least boost capacity by a few thousand, and probably even more crucially increase our executive box facilties (double or tripling our revenue in that area, at least), something the club is crying out for.

Anyway, I bring this up after visiting Wolves yesterday, and basically seeing for myself what they have done - adding another tier on to their own version of the Park End. These are two photos of the same stand, one from March 2010 when we played them, and one from yesterday:

24cgsq0.jpg


8zo7wn.jpg


There wasn't much space taken up behind the stand either, by construction. There was a small construction area, but nothing major. The ticket offices had been moved to the side, in temporary portacabins. As you can see, the lower tier was already open, with the top tier opening in August. The new stand is costing Wolves £18m to build, and includes new museum, supporters bar and megastore. Capacity is being boosted from 27000 to 31000.

Just thought this was interesting. Obviously there's no new stadium on the horizon. So rather than continue to do nothing, which is effectively what the current board is doing, and us continuing to follow the model of selling one star each summer to keep the banks sweet, and rely on Moyes' managerial abilities to keep us in the top half, I think doing something like this would be of far greater benefit in the long run. I'm sure most people would rather we have a super duper new stadium, but if we can't have that, we should be settling for the next best thing in stadium redevelopment - which is possible (as shown above, being done by other clubs), no matter what Elstone says.

That redevelopment boosted total capacity by a little over 2000. Not really what we need.
 

Expanding our stadium would do nothing other than cost us a lot of money. It wouldn't mean our attendances would go up. Have we even sold out this year?

A new stadium is the only way to move forward as it reduces costs long term

A new stadium would be ideal, but it clearly isn't possible under the current board. We can't afford £300m+ to build one that befits the club. There's no suitable land we can attain, and the club is seemingly obsessed with 'retail enablers', effectively dooming us to be a bigger version of Bolton or Wigan with a stadium situated in a retail park.

Rather than do absolutely nothing at all and stagnate, as we have been doing for the last 12 years (Kings Dock then Kirkby failures), a new stand is affordable, and would boost executive box revenues. We currently have 10 executive boxes at Goodison. Even West Brom have 27 boxes, nearly three times as many as us. We are so far behind some other clubs, it's unbelievable - Arsenal have 152 boxes!

When you think such boxes go for around £40k a pop for a season, we're clearly missing out on significant revenue.

And yeah, I know gates are down this season, but that's exactly why the club should be investing now; doing something like this would pay dividends eventually and improve the bottom line. Doing nothing at all and waiting another 10 years for a whiff of a new stadium plan simply isn't an option, unless we all just accept that we're now a Fulham or a Middlesboro, and just cut our cloth accordingly, accepting that our Baines/Fellaini/Jelavic players will all be sold with each passing summer, to appease the banks.
 
There wasn't much space taken up behind the stand either, by construction. There was a small construction area, but nothing major. The ticket offices had been moved to the side, in temporary portacabins. As you can see, the lower tier was already open, with the top tier opening in August. The new stand is costing Wolves £18m to build, and includes new museum, supporters bar and megastore. Capacity is being boosted from 27000 to 31000.

Just thought this was interesting. Obviously there's no new stadium on the horizon. So rather than continue to do nothing, which is effectively what the current board is doing, and us continuing to follow the model of selling one star each summer to keep the banks sweet, and rely on Moyes' managerial abilities to keep us in the top half, I think doing something like this would be of far greater benefit in the long run. I'm sure most people would rather we have a super duper new stadium, but if we can't have that, we should be settling for the next best thing in stadium redevelopment - which is possible (as shown above, being done by other clubs), no matter what Elstone says.

Any idea what the break down of that 18m is? IE how much just to ass on the new tier? And how was the work done, only in the off season, or was the whole thing closed during the season??

That redevelopment boosted total capacity by a little over 2000. Not really what we need.

His text says 4k??
 
That redevelopment boosted total capacity by a little over 2000. Not really what we need.

4000 actually.

The boost would be in the increase of executive facilities, if they were included in a new two tier Park End.

The club was already planning an £11m development on the Park End car park, don't forget, before that got predictably botched and never gets talked about anymore.
 
4000 actually.

The boost would be in the increase of executive facilities, if they were included in a new two tier Park End.

The club was already planning an £11m development on the Park End car park, don't forget, before that got predictably botched and never gets talked about anymore.

Not sure where you're getting your figures, but according to wikipedia:

Up until May 2011, the ground had a capacity of 29,400. However the 5,500 Stan Cullis Stand was knocked down for redevelopment

Phase 1 of this process was confirmed in February 2011,[SUP][8][/SUP][SUP][9][/SUP] and commenced on 23 May 2011 as demolition of the Stan Cullis Stand began. In its place will be a new two-tier stand (seating 7,798), complete with mega-store, museum, café, hospitality facilities and video screen, that will be officially opened for the 2012–13 season. The stand will extend around into the north east corner – currently open space – to house away fans in this spot. Stadium capacity at the end of this phase will be approximately 31,700.[SUP][8][/SUP]

The old stand had a capacity of 5500, the new stand has a capacity of 7798. As i said, just over 2000 new seats.
 
Not sure where you're getting your figures, but according to wikipedia:





The old stand had a capacity of 5500, the new stand has a capacity of 7798. As i said, just over 2000 new seats.

The main reason to redevelop would be to increase our corporate income/boxes etc. rather than additional seating but as someone said above, the club f*cked up the Kitbag Park end development so i'd doubt they could manage this.
 

That would be 4000 unobstructed seats too...I think the Park End seems to sell out quicker the other stands at Goodison due to it having the most modern facilties, no obstructed views and the good sightlines.

The question is how long would it be before we got a return on that £18 million (approx) investment? If you could sell the extra seats and get a good amount of executive boxes in between the top and bottom tier, then it is defintely a viable option to increase (marginally) the revenue that Goodison generates.

But by doing this it would mean comitting to staying at Goodison, and the board just dont see that as an option. i.e. they wouldn't invest £18 million if we were to leave Goodison within the next 5 years. But then again, why were they planning on the annex building in the Park End car park?

I'm all for it like, I'd love Goodison to be redeveloped rarther than moving to a souless mega dome in a retail park.
 
That would be 4000 unobstructed seats too...I think the Park End seems to sell out quicker the other stands at Goodison due to it having the most modern facilties, no obstructed views and the good sightlines.

The question is how long would it be before we got a return on that £18 million (approx) investment? If you could sell the extra seats and get a good amount of executive boxes in between the top and bottom tier, then it is defintely a viable option to increase (marginally) the revenue that Goodison generates.

But by doing this it would mean comitting to staying at Goodison, and the board just dont see that as an option. i.e. they wouldn't invest £18 million if we were to leave Goodison within the next 5 years. But then again, why were they planning on the annex building in the Park End car park?

I'm all for it like, I'd love Goodison to be redeveloped rarther than moving to a souless mega dome in a retail park.

The annex wouldn't have been funded by us.
 
The park end should be Expanded its the only stand that has no houses at the back . I dont no why they dont take the posts out of the Other Stands. With the techonalgy around now it can be done. It would give us the potential to sell 4000 more seats than we do now
 
The annex wouldn't have been funded by us.

Yeah I know, but I'm sure Kitbag (and the other partners paying for it) wouldn't have been too happy if that was built and then we just packed up and left for a new stadium after a few years.

It seemed to show that the board feel like we aint going anywhere soon.
 
Yeah I know, but I'm sure Kitbag (and the other partners paying for it) wouldn't have been too happy if that was built and then we just packed up and left for a new stadium after a few years.

It seemed to show that the board feel like we aint going anywhere soon.

If we had moved to a new stadium i'm sure there would have been plenty of room for a megastore. I doubt Kitbag would have been to upset that we were moving to a 50,000+ seater.
 

Status
Not open for further replies.
Top