Villa Park redevelopment

[deeps]

Think the North and Holte will be the areas they look to expand. 

[The Fun Factory]

If anything does happen it feels like it would be a multi-staged big project, looking at holistically of all Villa Park and the surrounding area. Namely-

-Increasing capacity at Villa Park around the North Stand area

-More disabled seating to be in line with regulations. We must be inclusive towards all fans

-More hospitality in the ground, which would be of a world class standard to bring in that extra money we want and make us more appealing for other non Villa events

-Ways to upgrade Doug Ellis stand- Would they look at making the centre areas more corporate/padded seats? Might annoy long standing season ticket holders. The internal areas are cramped but it will be difficult to expand this given the location of the road.

-Install rail seats in the Holte Lower? 

-Transportation including rail, parking and buses. Has to be better if we want a bigger ground

-Villa Village/Club Shop/Indoor academy- Could all this be demolished and replaced. Think we have an existing application on this. We have a huge area and the options are numerous.

-Urban academy at Teme by Witton Stadium. Got the application, will be progress with this? 

[VillaChris]

On 23/11/2021 at 07:36, sidcow said:

Maybe a Tram Route would change that. Get the owners to contribute. 

Or knock it down and build a huge housing estate...... With a tram route, would make the houses more valuable. 

Surprised the club don't put on some shuttle buses from Star City on matchdays. Big car park and think people would pay a fiver to use it given it's more than that to park right by VP.

Start from half 1 and probably could make decent money.

 

[avfc1982am]

TBH I'd like to see them knock the DE down and so it properly, extending over the road like the Trinity. That alone could add another 5,000 and increased hospitality. Personally I think redeveloping the North won't be problematic in increasing the capacity up to 50k either. There is a vast amount of space to work with. The car park could be removed or replaced quite easily with a multistorey solution. The club shop linked to the stand with other amenities, bars, restaurants. I don't see any half measures with this considering the development Edens was involved in with the Bucks.  

[messi11]

Ive seen the plans

[The Fun Factory]

If anybody has a spare hour or so i would recommend watching on youtube (other platform sharing options are available) saving Wrigley field. This was a huge project by the Chicago Cubs owners in completely renovating and refurbishing the ballpark which is unusual in America in that they have not moved and its an historic site. 

It did cost a thick end of $575 million dollars though.

[wilko154]

14 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

If anybody has a spare hour or so i would recommend watching on youtube (other platform sharing options are available) saving Wrigley field. This was a huge project by the Chicago Cubs owners in completely renovating and refurbishing the ballpark which is unusual in America in that they have not moved and its an historic site. 

It did cost a thick end of $575 million dollars though.

Thanks, I've just sat and watched this and it's brilliant.

[Junxs]

I never understood why they changed the 102/104/105 buses to x3,x4,X5 and every single one of them go up the express way just past Erdington.

They are frequent buses, come every 7 to 10 minutes, why can't half of them use the old route through Aston? Perhaps drop the X on the ones that don't use the express way. A lot of villa fans live in Sutton (and beyond) and many are deterred by having to change buses in Erdington.. and the bus from Erdington takes a detour on match days leaving you with a half hour walk from the cemetery. 

When I was younger me and my brother's would always catch the bus there and back but the option isn't there anymore really unless you fancy a long walk.

Last time I went by train but it was a joke, never doing that again.

Going by car is stupid as well, as the traffic is so heavy until you get past the lights at spaghetti junction. It's really irritating as there's nothing coming from the other direction on the roundabout causing a massive backlog. Why can't these lights be turned off on match days so it can be used as a regular roundabout for an hour or so.

Seems to be the council and transport companies have no interest in making things easier for the fans, they'd prefer it if people were put off from attending matches it seems

 

 

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, Junxs said:

Seems to be the council and transport companies have no interest in making things easier for the fans, they'd prefer it if people were put off from attending matches it seems

This seems to be the key, there are lots of things that local authority and the police could do on matchday that could make leaving Villa Park much easier - just manning some junctions and clearing some things out - it'd encourage more busses into the area by allowing better movement - the problem is that the police and local authorities are skint and the Premier League is enormously wealthy, so the local authority see only pound signs and the Premier league, as noted elsewhere has no interest in giving their money to anyone but themselves. The only group that can bring pressure to bear on this are the fans, because I don't think either of the two sides will move on it unless there's a lot of noise. 

This isn't a problem that we should be putting onto Christian Purslow, this is one of those occasions where we should be putting as much pressure as we can onto Andy Street.

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

Something like the far stand here might suit the North stand, maybe have the corporate suites just in the corner with the Doug Ellis stand while joining in more with the Trinity Road Stand on the other side.

 

[MWARLEY2]

Well if they are looking to apply for pp in the next few months then their ideas must be pretty much firmed up. I am looking forward to seeing if their vision is exciting as i can imagine it will be.

[villa4europe]

33 minutes ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Well if they are looking to apply for pp in the next few months then their ideas must be pretty much firmed up. I am looking forward to seeing if their vision is exciting as i can imagine it will be.

Would mean that the architect and probably PM and cost consultant are already employed 

[The Fun Factory]

Its moved quicker than I expected. It seems only a year and a bit ago that Purslow was basically saying it wasn't part of their short to medium term plans.  They must have spent a fair bit in refurbishing the North Stand facilities now called the Gas Lamp lounge, which they now may very well flatten. The season ticket waiting list must have pleasantly surprised them. Perhaps they didn't quite realise just how much potential support we have if we ever actually half decent again.

[DaveAV1]

NSWE are wealthy guys and we all hope that they will keep investing in the team, which I think they will. However no matter how much you put in there are no guarantees. Man City still haven’t had a Rotterdam night. Players, managers etc come and go but investing in the infrastructure is more permanent. They’ve spent big on BMH and that is clearly all part of a plan to develop and attract  players for now and the future. To spend big on Villa Park would obviously be a part of increasing long term revenue however it would also be a more permanent legacy that could last a lifetime. There is often an element of vanity with wealthy men.  I’m sure they’ve got plenty of houses all with garages full of spectacular cars or anything else you and I can only dream of. However rebuilding an iconic stadium like Villa Park and creating something equally ironic, surely must have an appeal. Especially when you look at all the characterless bowls that have been built. All very flash and practical but who will remember who was responsible for creating any of them in the future?

We still mourn the loss of the wonderful old Trinity Road Stand. Imagine being the men who commission something that is so great  that it is still loved a hundred years later? I can imagine that might appeal to NSWE and they can spend without worrying about FFP. 

[The Fun Factory]

1 hour ago, DaveAV1 said:

However rebuilding an iconic stadium like Villa Park and creating something equally ironic, surely must have an appeal.

It will just be like rain on your wedding day

[sidcow]

8 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

NSWE are wealthy guys and we all hope that they will keep investing in the team, which I think they will. However no matter how much you put in there are no guarantees. Man City still haven’t had a Rotterdam night. Players, managers etc come and go but investing in the infrastructure is more permanent. They’ve spent big on BMH and that is clearly all part of a plan to develop and attract  players for now and the future. To spend big on Villa Park would obviously be a part of increasing long term revenue however it would also be a more permanent legacy that could last a lifetime. There is often an element of vanity with wealthy men.  I’m sure they’ve got plenty of houses all with garages full of spectacular cars or anything else you and I can only dream of. However rebuilding an iconic stadium like Villa Park and creating something equally ironic, surely must have an appeal. Especially when you look at all the characterless bowls that have been built. All very flash and practical but who will remember who was responsible for creating any of them in the future?

We still mourn the loss of the wonderful old Trinity Road Stand. Imagine being the men who commission something that is so great  that it is still loved a hundred years later? I can imagine that might appeal to NSWE and they can spend without worrying about FFP. 

Trinity Road stand is one stand no one has mentioned.  General Krulak made some reference to remodeling it to not be so ugly.  Maybe if the roof needs lifting to facilitate a North Stand rebuild/connection they could squeeze an extra couple of thousand of seats in there? 

[alreadyexists]

15 hours ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Well if they are looking to apply for pp in the next few months then their ideas must be pretty much firmed up. I am looking forward to seeing if their vision is exciting as i can imagine it will be.

Being a Planner professionally, from my experience this isn’t necessarily the case. Planning Permission is often the first step in the chain before other things have to happen. It’s the most iterative process and the one where most formative and material changes are likely to happen. Then with other legislation afterwards, like building regulations etc, they are more black and white, right or wrong, whereas planning is more subtle and open to interpretation.

Sorry for the boring work chat! Lol

[TheMelvillan]

I think the owners are looking at it very logically. They've come into a business which has the rare and fortunate situation where demand is outstripping supply. Simple solution is to make a capital investment which delivers increased supply and which will pay for itself over time. Add in the non financial benefits and you have a winner. 

I do think it points to NSWE being in it for the long haul which is encouraging as im a big fan of stability!

However they are successful billionaires and that world is kinda nuts so who knows

 

 

[DaveAV1]

47 minutes ago, alreadyexists said:

Being a Planner professionally, from my experience this isn’t necessarily the case. Planning Permission is often the first step in the chain before other things have to happen. It’s the most iterative process and the one where most formative and material changes are likely to happen. Then with other legislation afterwards, like building regulations etc, they are more black and white, right or wrong, whereas planning is more subtle and open to interpretation.

Sorry for the boring work chat! Lol

Thanks for the insight. Can you tell us does there have to be any sort of broad specifics in the first application? Such as, “Rebuild North Stand” or “Alterations to Trinity Road Stand”? Surely it can’t be as nonspecific as, “We wanna build some stuff.”?

[The Fun Factory]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Trinity Road stand is one stand no one has mentioned.  General Krulak made some reference to remodeling it to not be so ugly.  Maybe if the roof needs lifting to facilitate a North Stand rebuild/connection they could squeeze an extra couple of thousand of seats in there? 

I think in some of the old plans by Lerner that were dug up a while ago showed one of the options as quite a significant loss of capacity in some of the Trinity stand for the rebuild. However that plan is very old and they may have  completely different ideas. What's has moved on the las 10 years is the sheer amount of money you can earn via corporate and hospitality in 'sports entertainment'. To be blunt that will be the main driver and the extra seats will be  an additional benefit. Us plebs have to know our place.