Re: Etihad Campus, Stadium Development and Collar Site
I see the OS now has an artist's rendition of the new stadium with both new ends added. It is as below:
Let's look at that in a slightly larger size:
[bigimg]http://s23.postimg.org/chuoxcjru/COMS_expansion.jpg[/bigimg]
What I can see here:
- Note the roof now seems to be better integrated with the roof over the stands than in previous concepts. Previous concepts had the roof at a whole other level, kind of like the uneven roofing at Maine Road, which made it seem really likely that the stands would also be redeveloped later, as the roof just did not seem right at all. Now the roof seems more natural, even if it's weird how low it goes in each corner. To me, this means that the club view expanding the stands as a very long-term goal, if they plan to do it at all in fact. 60,000 could be the capacity for 10 or 20 years before any upgrade. I suspect the club has no plans to go past 60k right now.
- It's practically impossible to see the guy lines on that pic, but it's obvious from the angles that the poles sticking out of the spirals are not supporting the new end. There are two poles on each end supporting the roof, but they come directly out of the stand, which I guess means much greater strength in the superstructure itself. Notice the whacking great pillars where the redeveloped ends meet the old stands though. That's the trade-off for reinforcing one part of the ground and not all of it.
- My initial suspicions about the outside are correct. The ends will now be very wide, so if the club does ever redo the stands to match the height of the ends, the spirals will have to go and probably won't be replaced. See the last point - the spirals aren't even needed to support the new superstructure, so I doubt they'd be included if the outer edge of the stadium was pushed out on their sides too.
- That wall of glass looks cool, although it would look better if it were ornamented IMO - funky lights at night, a giant screen for projecting highlights, a big letter display with our name. You can see our badge - just - on that image, but it's sitting alone in a huge sheet of plate glass. Still, that space offers the room for the escalators people were talking about so I'd bet they are on the menu.
All just my interpretation, of course.
