Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site

[Ardwick Green Blue]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

Considering the way the owners have acted in growing the club very rapidly it seems odd to me that they appear to be very cautious with this. 6000 extra seats in 2015 & possibly a further 6000 a year later does not look overly ambitious to me.

Assuming the work can be carried out without having to close the area being expanded then why not do both ends simultaneously?

 

[stony]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

This.

They are a key design feature for the welfare of the pitch.

You could still fill the corners with removable seats so the airflow is only stopped during a game. I'm sure the architects are clever enough to come up with a design that will still allow the pitch to breath properly.

You'd be surprised! The corners where the louvres are we're originally going to be a type of mesh very similar to the mesh on the high level plant level at the top of the Colin bell stand where the etihad signs are. Back in 2000 I spent an hour under a wind turbine testing the design and got piss wet through. The design for the louvres was copied from the Lowry which was built at the same time. Without sounding like a big head I saw them on the way home one night and suggested them to the architect from Arup. The cladding company who did the stadium did the Lowry cladding "brodericks" and the architect had a look and hey presto the louvres were installed. Another stadium fact for you, Arup wanted to install random white,grey and blue seats in an irregular pattern. I told this to alisdair macintosh on the qt (on the night it pissed down I think against Ipswich at Maine road) and the club insisted all the seats were blue! I drove past the stadium tonight! I love it and the best years of my life were spent working on it but the outside is fairly ugly! Hope we have some ideas to make it wow!

Cheers for that mate, always nice to read little snippets like this, and this is just the sort of random fact that would interest Gary James, I hope he doesn't miss it.

 

[danebanksheik]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

Considering the way the owners have acted in growing the club very rapidly it seems odd to me that they appear to be very cautious with this. 6000 extra seats in 2015 & possibly a further 6000 a year later does not look overly ambitious to me.

Assuming the work can be carried out without having to close the area being expanded then why not do both ends simultaneously?

I think it shows a great understanding of where we are at. Another 6000 seats will take some filling so why build something you are unlikely to need regularly until the crowd builds up to the new level just as it has recently grown to capacity with sell outs in the last week of sales.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

Considering the way the owners have acted in growing the club very rapidly it seems odd to me that they appear to be very cautious with this. 6000 extra seats in 2015 & possibly a further 6000 a year later does not look overly ambitious to me.

Assuming the work can be carried out without having to close the area being expanded then why not do both ends simultaneously?

I think it shows a great understanding of where we are at. Another 6000 seats will take some filling so why build something you are unlikely to need regularly until the crowd builds up to the new level just as it has recently grown to capacity with sell outs in the last week of sales.

Baring in mind every game was sold out last season, 7,000 won't take much filling. 14,000 probably would. But even then 5 or 6 years of sustained top 4 football would do the job and 10 years would leave the place bursting at the seams. For this reason, whatever they do now must be extendible by another 10-14 thousand in the medium term.

 

[worsleyweb]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

You could still fill the corners with removable seats so the airflow is only stopped during a game. I'm sure the architects are clever enough to come up with a design that will still allow the pitch to breath properly.

You'd be surprised! The corners where the louvres are we're originally going to be a type of mesh very similar to the mesh on the high level plant level at the top of the Colin bell stand where the etihad signs are. Back in 2000 I spent an hour under a wind turbine testing the design and got piss wet through. The design for the louvres was copied from the Lowry which was built at the same time. Without sounding like a big head I saw them on the way home one night and suggested them to the architect from Arup. The cladding company who did the stadium did the Lowry cladding "brodericks" and the architect had a look and hey presto the louvres were installed. Another stadium fact for you, Arup wanted to install random white,grey and blue seats in an irregular pattern. I told this to alisdair macintosh on the qt (on the night it pissed down I think against Ipswich at Maine road) and the club insisted all the seats were blue! I drove past the stadium tonight! I love it and the best years of my life were spent working on it but the outside is fairly ugly! Hope we have some ideas to make it wow!

Cheers for that mate, always nice to read little snippets like this, and this is just the sort of random fact that would interest Gary James, I hope he doesn't miss it.

Thanks pal. I started on the stadium in 1999 just after working on the rags training ground. It was obviously a great experience. I went to Luxembourg to buy the commonwealth games running track and helped city as much as I could being a massive blue. The design team were not football fans and in my opinion had no concept of who they were building it for! I.e city fans.I remember first going on the site in 99 doing surveys in the old factories etc and I was literally the last person to leave in 2004! My cabin is still on site in the car park and now painted grey! I remember driving down to south Wales where the seats were made to count 47000 plastic seats as well. The guy who installed them was a great bloke and put a lot of thought into how to ensure the seats didn't fade in colour. If you notice they ae in fantastic condition for 10 years. An actual new colour was invented called kippax blue for the seat. It was the time we were messing about with the kit colour with laser blue. In my opinion Gary cook did a good job brightening the inner concourse up and did a good job in the stadium.

 

[Brewster's millions]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

Considering the way the owners have acted in growing the club very rapidly it seems odd to me that they appear to be very cautious with this. 6000 extra seats in 2015 & possibly a further 6000 a year later does not look overly ambitious to me.

Assuming the work can be carried out without having to close the area being expanded then why not do both ends simultaneously?

I think it shows a great understanding of where we are at. Another 6000 seats will take some filling so why build something you are unlikely to need regularly until the crowd builds up to the new level just as it has recently grown to capacity with sell outs in the last week of sales.

Baring in mind every game was sold out last season, 7,000 won't take much filling. 14,000 probably would. But even then 5 or 6 years of sustained top 4 football would do the job and 10 years would leave the place bursting at the seams. For this reason, whatever they do now must be extendible by another 10-14 thousand in the medium term.

Would think that we are likely to put a lot of consideration into what other facilities are required as well as the number of seats. Given the amount of land behind the north stand, any expansion could conceivably include a new museum, shop, corporate/conference facilities etc. The exterior of the ground could be turned into something really special.

I'm sure all this has been covered several times in the thread but given the sunk costs involved and the disruption caused by the building work, the owners will want to do as much as they can in a single project. So a little bit of a delay is perhaps understandable, even if it is bloody frustrating!

 

[Mike N]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

You'd be surprised! The corners where the louvres are we're originally going to be a type of mesh very similar to the mesh on the high level plant level at the top of the Colin bell stand where the etihad signs are. Back in 2000 I spent an hour under a wind turbine testing the design and got piss wet through. The design for the louvres was copied from the Lowry which was built at the same time. Without sounding like a big head I saw them on the way home one night and suggested them to the architect from Arup. The cladding company who did the stadium did the Lowry cladding "brodericks" and the architect had a look and hey presto the louvres were installed. Another stadium fact for you, Arup wanted to install random white,grey and blue seats in an irregular pattern. I told this to alisdair macintosh on the qt (on the night it pissed down I think against Ipswich at Maine road) and the club insisted all the seats were blue! I drove past the stadium tonight! I love it and the best years of my life were spent working on it but the outside is fairly ugly! Hope we have some ideas to make it wow!

Cheers for that mate, always nice to read little snippets like this, and this is just the sort of random fact that would interest Gary James, I hope he doesn't miss it.

Thanks pal. I started on the stadium in 1999 just after working on the rags training ground. It was obviously a great experience. I went to Luxembourg to buy the commonwealth games running track and helped city as much as I could being a massive blue. The design team were not football fans and in my opinion had no concept of who they were building it for! I.e city fans.I remember first going on the site in 99 doing surveys in the old factories etc and I was literally the last person to leave in 2004! My cabin is still on site in the car park and now painted grey! I remember driving down to south Wales where the seats were made to count 47000 plastic seats as well. The guy who installed them was a great bloke and put a lot of thought into how to ensure the seats didn't fade in colour. If you notice they ae in fantastic condition for 10 years. An actual new colour was invented called kippax blue for the seat. It was the time we were messing about with the kit colour with laser blue. In my opinion Gary cook did a good job brightening the inner concourse up and did a good job in the stadium.

Great inside knowledge mate, keep it coming!

Sorry if I missed it but what are you working on now?

 

[danebanksheik]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

Considering the way the owners have acted in growing the club very rapidly it seems odd to me that they appear to be very cautious with this. 6000 extra seats in 2015 & possibly a further 6000 a year later does not look overly ambitious to me.

Assuming the work can be carried out without having to close the area being expanded then why not do both ends simultaneously?

I think it shows a great understanding of where we are at. Another 6000 seats will take some filling so why build something you are unlikely to need regularly until the crowd builds up to the new level just as it has recently grown to capacity with sell outs in the last week of sales.

Baring in mind every game was sold out last season, 7,000 won't take much filling. 14,000 probably would. But even then 5 or 6 years of sustained top 4 football would do the job and 10 years would leave the place bursting at the seams. For this reason, whatever they do now must be extendible by another 10-14 thousand in the medium term.

Let's be honest here - we were "sold out" in name only for a lot of games but there were plenty always available in viagogo, we are not yet at the stage where they're queuing round the block week in week out but 5 or 6 years of sustained top 4 football will definitely bring this about and is a must for us to continue to even get near the first expansion figure.
We have the set up and should be capable of maintaining this success but its still my opinion that an increase of around 30% in our regular match day attendance is some way off and more long term. I hope I am wrong and would love to see it full pretty soon after the addition of the first stage but overall that's why I think the owners are not doing it all at once.

 

[LoveCity]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

I just saw this photo on Twitter. I was convinced for a second it was some mock-up of the Etihad but it's actually Gremio's stadium (I think). But it made me think of standing at the Etihad. :)

[bigimg]http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BL8uC8fCAAAXYMT.jpg:large[/bigimg]

 

[Why Always Ste]

Re: Etihad Campus & potential new stadium

This is old style standing though, no? doesn't seem like the Safe Standing designs that have appeared in Bundesliga where there is a barrier for every row to avoid crushing.