Architect Renderings

[Louis]

http://www.keioc.net/uploads/images/render-park-end-exterior.png

 

http://www.keioc.net/uploads/images/render-park-end-interior.png

 

Taken from this article

 

These are just basic concept drawings apparently, from WCEC - the company who are redeveloping Bramall Lane.

[Romey 1878]

Wasn't the new Park End originally designed as a two-tier stand anyway?

[Lowensda]

Not alot there to show, so is it only the Park-End that gets redeveloped?

[CraccerC]

second pic looks good, stand looks daunting, seems to be taken away from the away fans though which would be a shame, the banter is always decent over there although ima gwladys st boy myself

[rubecula]

If that is what is on offer......... geezus the designer needs to have his guide dog kicked.

 

It looks a total waste of money in my own humble opinion.

[Philinsuffolk]

Based on these drawings;

 

1) What additional capacity at Goodison would this provide?

2) Does it involve any modernisation (but not expansion) of the other stands? After all, the Park End is the most recent of our developments.

 

I suspect that these drawings raise one of the key questions/arguments about the whole option of redeveloping Goodison - that given the tight nature of our site and all of the surrounding housing, the only area where there is some meaningful space to add is at the Park End.

 

There needs to be a decision - if everyone wants to stay at Goodison forever then that is fine, but it means there will be a limit to what we can achieve with the ground. The only other thing they can do is take many years to slowly but surely try to buy up housing with a view to re-developing further once we have a whole side/end to expand, but this would take a VERY long time and without any guarantees - not a good option frankly. Not to mention the effect on the very community we should care about.

 

I would stress that I would dearly love us to stay at Goodison, but it does come with difficulties. Wouldn't it be lovely to be one of the few remaining top flight clubs with a traditional (albeit modernised) ground. Maybe a 2nd tier to the Park End is enough of an expansion - I for one don't think we can realistically hope to average 55,000.

[rubecula]

If we had the capacity, hypothetically, how many do you think we could average?

 

Could we fill for example a 70,000 seat stadium?

[Philinsuffolk]

If we had the capacity, hypothetically, how many do you think we could average?

 

Could we fill for example a 70,000 seat stadium?

 

 

Rubecula - your questions are absolutely key but to my mind there are two quite different questions/answers here.

 

Could we fill a 70,000 seat stadium? Yes, absolutely. But how often? Once a season, maybe twice?

 

The ground decisions need to be taken on the basis of what they reasonably think we can average over time. Personally, I am not too sure that we would average much over 45,000 over the course of time. 50-55,000 if were consistently succesful but there's the risk.

 

The best chance of long term success is to have a ground that is big enough to get the revenue in, but not to havea ground that has lots of spare seats each week. Quite what that figure is though...?!

[DangerMouse]

Dare I even say Google sketchup... I fucking hate that thing...

[DangerMouse]

" KEIOC have one eye on the costs now but the other eye on the income streams of tomorrow."

 

Is this even their job? I wish they would fuck right off..

Edited April 19, 2010 by DangerMouse

[StevO]

If we had the capacity, hypothetically, how many do you think we could average?

 

Could we fill for example a 70,000 seat stadium?

 

that is a difficult question. and i dont think we can answer it until we have the extra to try.

we currently have a 40,000 seater stadium, where we average around 36,000 attendance in current times. we currently have 10% obstructed views, take them away and we are left with a full house. is that because we can sell all the good seats every week? or because we can only get 36,000 to turn up for most games? i dont think we will know the answer until we have the extra seats.

you can try polling the fans and ask will they buy a ticket, but them sort of polls even the arm chair fan goes every match home and away.

 

my humble opinion is phased redevelopment/expansion. rebuild the park end, aim for 45,000 with the obstructed views in the other stands. see how we go, if we are selling out all the good seats expand a little with the redevelopment of bullens road, may 48,000. then again with gwladys, probably to the same sort of capacity but maybe we would get better sales due to no obstructions. then if we are selling out the 3 new stands, construction of the main stand is the make or break for how big we can take it. if we arent filling up just go to 50,000 with no obstructions anywhere, if we are filling up try to get as close to 60,000 as possible. obviously figures are just pulled out of the air but im sure you get my drift. non commital to anything more than the next development. thats how goodison park was built in the first place. it might take ten years, but if they get it right it would be worth it.

[iggy]

I do think the obstructed views do have a big impact, unless you sit in the park end or the front of one of one of the others, then most of the seats have some kind of obstruction even if the seat is not designated as such.

I agree with your "humble opinion" StevO, "If you build it they will come"

[MikeO]

The obstructed views are a nightmare. I'd buy one only for truly (or potentially) momentous games; the only time I have was for the United game after Alan Ball died when I just had to be there.

You just need to look at the seating availability plan at online ticketing....this is Upper Gwladys 4 for Sunday's game but it's always the same. Plenty of obstructed (green) available and only the odd single "unobstructed" (though I'd argue that some of them are pretty close to being obstructed).

 

 

If they sold obstructed for half price they'd sell a lot more but you only get a discount of £1....pathetic.

 

We certainly have the ability to fill a bigger stadium....I'd like to see a capacity of maybe 55,000....60 may be pushing it a bit.

[DangerMouse]

I think we could fill a 50K seater stadium easily but Im not sure about average attendances.... I think we would struggle to achieve an average of more than 45K if honest....at the anyway... we need a few thousand day trippers like them lot across the park

 

As for the whole redevelopment of Goodison park thing.... Im sure the objective is to not only increase attendance but increase the proportion of high value seats.. ie corporate and box.

[paul]

Is the top tier overlapping the lower tier there I can't quite tell?

 

It should do, fit more capacity into space if they give it a big overlap

Edited April 26, 2010 by paul