Villa Park Redevelopment

[Percy McCarthy]

I googled 53a Tame Road. Apparently it’s the most expensive property in the postcode, worth about £7m. It was last bought for £4.8m in 2018, and its value has increased by over half-a-million in the last month.

Is it the Academy do you think?

[Crown Hill]

That’s where it is in the map!

[Percy McCarthy]

That’s where it is in the map!

Haha, thanks! I haven’t got a fucking clue have I.

[Crown Hill]

That’s where it is in the map!

Haha, thanks! I haven’t got a fucking clue have I.

I did find out it was a Coal Meechants in 1962!

[Crown Hill]

It looks like all the land mentioned on both sides of Tame Road was purchased in 2018!

[PeterWithe]

  architects at Grimshaw have now been tasked with designing an expansion of the DE 

I hope that's the A level students, if they are just doing it on the O level course it will be shit.

[Percy McCarthy]

  architects at Grimshaw have now been tasked with designing an expansion of the DE 

I hope that's the A level students, if they are just doing it on the O level course it will be shit.

I went to Grimshaw’s sixth form… many times, to get off with the girls and rob the Kit-kat machine.

[London Villan]

I could see the lower being kept, but with a lot of work on the councourses, etc. I'd be amazed if the upper isn't pretty much completely replaced, it has so many problems.

A shell around the north was easier because it had all the old office space that could be repurposed, the DE is all squeezed into the smallest amount of space they could manage. It'll be interesting to see what the plans are for the gantry up there, I can't imagine it not getting a massive upgrade because it's very basic right now.

The stand was a bodge job, built on the cheap. If the land is available it would make sense to rebuild it and increase the capacity from 10500 to closer to 20,000 with modern facilities and premium spaces.

[algy]

I could see the lower being kept, but with a lot of work on the councourses, etc. I'd be amazed if the upper isn't pretty much completely replaced, it has so many problems.

A shell around the north was easier because it had all the old office space that could be repurposed, the DE is all squeezed into the smallest amount of space they could manage. It'll be interesting to see what the plans are for the gantry up there, I can't imagine it not getting a massive upgrade because it's very basic right now.

The stand was a bodge job, built on the cheap. If the land is available it would make sense to rebuild it and increase the capacity from 10500 to closer to 20,000 with modern facilities and premium spaces.

I don’t think it does make sense.

First we’d be playing in a 3 sided ground for a couple of seasons.

Second, a new build top of the range the stand is going to come with new build top of the range ticket prices. Prices that we’ve already seen that we can’t sell that many tickets at (GA+). To me it makes more sense for us to add 7k seats that are vaguely affordable to the people we’re trying to sell them to than 11k seats that aren’t.

Of course this might be invalidated by the 2028/9 season as we’ll have won 3 league titles on the bounce, a UEFA Cup, and a couple of Champions Leagues so will no doubt have attracted the typical hangers on and groupies that come with that territory

[tomd2103]

It would be a different job to the North I would imagine. The lower tier could probably be kept but the upper would surely have to go.

I wonder if they could keep the stand open and build the new bit behind and then finish the internal bits on a close season, similar to what Liverpool did?

That would probably be the hope.  It might just be speculation at the moment, but it's exciting stuff!

[Percy McCarthy]

It would be a different job to the North I would imagine. The lower tier could probably be kept but the upper would surely have to go.

I wonder if they could keep the stand open and build the new bit behind and then finish the internal bits on a close season, similar to what Liverpool did?

That would probably be the hope.  It might just be speculation at the moment, but it's exciting stuff!

My first hope would be the stand moving closer to the pitch.

[London Villan]

Goes back to it being a bodge job. The lower tier was originally the original 1897 layout, which then had to be rebuilt with the awkward angles and poor use of space.

Replicating the Trinity, with squared off corners, will allow for at least 15-17000 seats, but it needs a larger lower tier.

[algy]

Could we rebuild the lower tier (again)? Like a reverse north stand thing, or a bit like we’re doing with the Trinity Road stand … rebuild the lower tier so that it forms a single lower/upper tier of ~9k, keep a similar angle but move it all closer to the pitch?

Then as phase 2 build a new ~7k upper tier with actual hospitality facilities. Dunno if I’d mentioned this before, but I worked as a kitchen porter at the Villa for a few months, and I found the DE stand kitchens to be borderline insane. The drains in the floor were raised so it took ages to mop the bloody floor because you were making the water go uphill, which is not something that water tends to do.

[Ads]

Buy up the houses, blow up the trees and make dresses for Small Heathens with the leaves, blow up the old one from orbit, just to be sure and build a new beast. Why muck around with anything else.

[Dante Lavelli]

Buy up the houses, blow up the trees and make dresses for Small Heathens with the leaves, blow up the old one from orbit, just to be sure and build a new beast. Why muck around with anything else.

I tend to agree in the sense we need to build a statement stand and not a sticky plaster solution. 

That will either be the Trinity or the Witton and about 18 months with only three stands. One of them needs to be insanely impressive architecturally.  It’s visibility from the motorway makes the Witton the prime candidate.