Etihad Campus, Stadium and Collar Site Development Thread

Now the City Football Group have teamed up with the Oak View Group, I think and expect the development of the Collar site in particular, and the Etihad Campus in general, to speed up.

Marty Edelman, Board Director at City Football Group, commented: "Co-op Live unlocks the potential for the Etihad Campus to grow as an entertainment destination that creates more reasons for the nation and world to visit Manchester.

Just in case anyone hasn’t the short CGI video.

Note the cars traveling down Alan Turing Way.

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looking at that photo the new building is overshadowing our stadium do we want that? Do our owner want that?
 
I'm no architect, but if was up to me I would extend the North Stand and, at the same time, build a new retractable roof. Along with an outer shell similar to the Allianz Arena, think this could look quite iconic. Add a big fck off 'Welcome to Manchester' sign on said roof and the job's a gud 'un! Atmosphere would certainly heat up indoors and would be ace for mega concerts and boxing.
 
In 2021 you'd think we'd have tickets on sale outside the ground - via machines up until kick off. If Network Rail can do it at train stations - I'm sure City can.... then again...
They do this at Real Madrid and Barca where they very rarely sell out. It's a smart idea. We should also provide something easy for walk-up fans and tourists. The PL should also allow much larger away allocations. If away clubs can sell the tickets they should get at least 10 per cent of capacity. It would be easy to fill a 60,000 plus stadium on this basis.
 
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I'm no architect, but if was up to me I would extend the North Stand and, at the same time, build a new retractable roof. Along with an outer shell similar to the Allianz Arena, think this could look quite iconic. Add a big fck off 'Welcome to Manchester' sign on said roof and the job's a gud 'un! Atmosphere would certainly heat up indoors and would be ace for mega concerts and boxing.
End of Covid restrictions and winning the CL will start the project off.
 
It's a question of whether our owners thought spending money on a new stadium would provide a return on the investment required to make it happen (as, say, Everton's owners do). If they did, I think the financing could and would be arranged in such a way that it doesn't become a millstone for the club.

Reliable sources in and around the club did say back in 2009 that ADUG's original inclination was to build a new stadium after the takeover and they looked at various sites in the vicinity of the current stadium. The eventual tentative plan was for a venue with a capacity in the range of 75K to 80K to be built on the north carpark.

As noted above, it fell through because Sport England wouldn't sanction the demolition of a stadium that had been so recently built. When we moved to CoMS (as it then was), David Bernstein said that the lease does contain an option for City to buy the stadium. In the meantime, the Council receives the rent we pay and uses that money to pay for the upkeep of the other facilities at Sportcity, such as the tennis centre, the Regional Athletics Arena, and so on.

If we bought the stadium with a view to building a new one, the money would go to Sport England. Had that happened already, the Council might well at some point have had to close the other adjacent venues, as happened a while back in Sheffield with their stadium and aquatics centre from the 1991 World Student Games. There'd also have been some more general reputational damage, which I'm sure they were wary of back in Abu Dhabi, given the stick we'd have probably got for knocking down such a new area built with public money.

The passage of time does IMO potentially mitigate these issues to a significant degree. First, the takeover happened only six years after the stadium opened for the Commonwealth Games, whereas by the end of next season it will be 20 years since that first event. That's a substantial difference in terms of the benefit the public have had from Sport England's initial investment in the stadium, so that body's view of things might be different now. So might the wider public's, while the media hostility we've attracted right until the present might also mean the club is less bothered about the PR aspect anyway.

Moreover, City and the Council now have a joint venture company that owns and will develop land around the stadium, which wasn't the case back in 2008. If a deal is done so that the ownership of the land where the stadium currently is passes to the JV development company with a view to being redeveloped for commercial purposes, it could be possible to structure a deal whereby the Council doesn't lose out financially.

I suppose there's also a possibility that we could even build a new stadium and sublet the existing one. The only viable tenant I could see is Sale Sharks, supplemented by whatever representative rugby and football matches it can still attract plus concerts. I don't see this as likely as it's too big for Sale and you wouldn't want a competitor next door to the new venue bidding for similar other events. I also think there would be a better return from building new commercial facilities where the stadium currently is. Still, I suppose you never know.

Frankly, I doubt that a new stadium will happen and am in the 'believe it when I see it' camp whenever these rumblings start. But even though I do love the Etihad, I've always wished we could play in a new facility built by ADUG, because I reckon they'd make it special. While bored during my working day, I'll try to devise reasons to just about keep the small sliver of hope alive in my own mind.

Who could we get as tenants for the old stadium as it would be if we built a second stadium ?

Rochdale ? Oldham ? Bury ? Sale ? Salford ? A basket ball team ? American Football ?
 

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