Villa Park redevelopment

[DJBOB]

1 hour ago, DakotaVilla said:

They absolutely do and this is straight out of the US ownership construct where local cities/mayors regularly fund large elements for their major sports teams. 

Very telling that Andy Street has not commented yet…..

Heck took one look at the council bankruptcy and said absolutely not. 
 
I feel a bit for Heck’s position because Purslow sold this Villa Live and North Stand redevelopment and then Heck has to come off the back of it and shoot it down.

Some of that may be just to look for cheaper ROI options but I can’t help but think the council bankruptcy, the rising construction cost (see Anfield construction company going belly up), and potentially qualifying for UCL ahead of schedule has complicated matters  

 

 

[DakotaVilla]

Rising construction cost is a misnomer. It’s only going to get more expensive the longer you delay it and is outweighed anyway by the opportunity cost of not having the revenue from the extra seats and corporate facilities earlier as originally planned. Re ROI it won’t make a huge difference over a 40/50 year time horizon to sweat the asset in any case. 

[Delphinho123]

Heck really wasn’t a fan of a lot of the work Purslow did, was he? 

[Rugeley Villa]

10 hours ago, Tayls said:

It’s the only logical explanation. 

Thought this myself 

[desensitized43]

I wonder if this has anything to do with BCC having pulled funding for anything nonessential.

[villan-scott]

I’d imagine if the shelving of the plans was because of a third party then we’d be shifting the blame towards them very quickly to save face. As there has been no such shift it’s highly likely this is on Heck and his vision being much different to that of which Purslow had mapped out. 

[picicata]

Logically this doesn't make much sense

Unless we're looking to move to a new stadium at some point 

[CVByrne]

7 hours ago, HKP90 said:

Only one way this makes any sense. 

New stadium. 

I'd be horrified if we moved away from VP.

New Stadium is an absolutely terrible idea and they won't be suckered into it. Liverpool are doing fine having just built around their existing stand to increase capacity and renovated Anfield in other ways. 

[Captain_Townsend]

Having slept on it I still see this as really bad news. Heck keeps doing major u-turns on everything we had planned and got buy in for. I really think this is a retrograde step.

I can kiss good by to ever getting a ticket now, I was looking forward to the new build making it easier to get over a few times a season.

[sne]

I mean surely it is the owners that have a vision rather than them letting whoever is the CEO having free reigns to do whatever and then doing a 180 if the next CEO has a new plan.

Really hope/believe  our owners are more hands on than just handing out the keys to the castle and then faffing off to the Hamptons. 

[CVByrne]

Personally I never exactly got why we had to demolish the stand rather than expanding it and upgrading it the way Liverpool did at Anfield. Cheaper to do and keeps the stand open during the upgrade. I think (and hope) we'll see some smaller scale plans for this before Euro 2028.

[Wurzel]

I have no idea who this is, or what their qualifications are but I found this tweet interesting and seemed to make some sense to me at least.

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Wurzel

[DakotaVilla]

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

Heck really wasn’t a fan of a lot of the work Purslow did, was he? 

The real question is why and whether he has any better ideas/suggestions himself?

So far he has basically hidden in a cave for 6 months because he was scared by the fan reaction after his initial commercialization of the Holte and unimpressive interactions with fan groups.

He has completely shit the bed on the new 150 year mark/logo and apparently marketing is his thing. A blind dog could have seen how amateurish that effort was.

He has then announced a massive change to an infrastructure project with no really substantive reasoning as to why. 

Add to that he has the gravitas of an Asda store manager. 
 

It has all the signs so far unfortunately of a man completely and utterly out of his depth. I hope he has some rabbits in a hat but Unai has saved him so far but as soon as things turn south this bloke is toast. 

[blunther]

47 minutes ago, picicata said:

Logically this doesn't make much sense

Unless we're looking to move to a new stadium at some point 

I think it makes perfect sense from a short-term corporate American point of view.

We can spend £100m, and make £50 a game from 50k fans

Or we can not spend £100m, take advantage of the demand outstripping supply and make £63 a game from 40k fans.

Same revenue, no cost. Of course it means some existing ST holders won't be able to afford to attend games, but their seats can be given to people who don't come every week who'll spend more on the ticket and other stuff at the ground.

From a business perspective, it makes massive sense. From a fan perspective it's not so good, but since when did we matter.

Edited December 20, 2023 by blunther

[sidcow]

7 hours ago, paul514 said:

It’s probably a gambit to get the transport partners to pull their finger out.

I am praying this is it. A bluff to force through the station development or availability of more/cheaper buses for the transport plan. 

You would imagine Andy Street and interested parties from the City Council would have been straight on the blower. 

Or maybe behind the scenes they've been pushing for a Tram extension. Something like that anyway. 

[CVByrne]

17 minutes ago, sne said:

I mean surely it is the owners that have a vision rather than them letting whoever is the CEO having free reigns to do whatever and then doing a 180 if the next CEO has a new plan.

Really hope/believe  our owners are more hands on than just handing out the keys to the castle and then faffing off to the Hamptons. 

Are you joking? They have other bigger businesses to run. They employ people at Villa to make these proposals and will defer to them to make the decisions. The board decides what is best for the club. NS is chairman. 

[CVByrne]

18 minutes ago, Wurzel said:

I have no idea who this is, or what their qualifications are but I found this tweet interesting and seemed to make some sense to me at least.

 

This lad is talking complete nonsense. 

[Jbvilla909]

17 minutes ago, Wurzel said:

I have no idea who this is, or what their qualifications are but I found this tweet interesting and seemed to make some sense to me at least.

 

This makes the most sense. North London was on a worse state than Aston before the new Wembley, Emirates etc. 

Heck is right to pause. Take a minute and do it right. In the meantime upgrade and modernise the existing facilities in all stands. 

[sidcow]

21 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Personally I never exactly got why we had to demolish the stand rather than expanding it and upgrading it the way Liverpool did at Anfield. Cheaper to do and keeps the stand open during the upgrade. I think (and hope) we'll see some smaller scale plans for this before Euro 2028.

You know Liverpool totally demolished the stand. 

[sidcow]

12 minutes ago, blunther said:

I think it makes perfect sense from a short-term corporate American point of view.

We can spend £100m, and make £50 a game from 50k fans

Or we can not spend £100m, take advantage of the demand outstripping supply and make £63 a game from 40k fans.

Same revenue, no cost. Of course it means some existing ST holders won't be able to afford to attend games, but their seats can be given to people who don't come every week who'll spend more on the ticket and other stuff at the ground.

From a business perspective, it makes massive sense. From a fan perspective it's not so good, but since when did we matter.

That's total bollocks @blunther

Increasing Season Ticket prices is never ever going to get close to matching the increased revenue this stand was going to generate. 

Taking aside the 10,000 extra seats or was also chocka filled with extra and massive corporate areas.   The current North Stand must lose so much money. The corporate is already stacked out and can't be increased.  There's so little space in the concourses they must lose. A fortune in food and drink sales.  It's almost impossible just to go for a piss there. 

I've been to Corporate there and you lose most of the half time just trying to get from your seat to the restaurant because of the crowds. 

I don't believe a word Heck has said on this.  Something is up.

As I've said elsewhere don't believe anything American Businessmen say. They'll say whatever they think you want to hear whilst carrying right on with their own agenda. 

If Heck says they have no plans to leave I wouldn't blink if a new stadium was announced next year. In fact I would have a little chuckle to myself as these pages filled with people saying "but he said" 

I've been there and seen it.