Mark Douglas has released a brilliant exclusive on Newcastle’s ongoing push to expand St James’ Park, speaking to the MD of Populous; the designers of Tottenham Hotspurs’ stunning new £1.2bn stadium.
He reveals that Newcastle are in discussions with the company as part of the club’s expansion study, seeking their expert advice as we attempt to extend the capacity beyond 60,000.
Christopher Lee – the managing director at Populous – tells iNews that he’d “bite your hand off” to be involved in the redesign of the “iconic” St James’ Park, adding that the company have previously worked with the Saudi PIF on projects in the Middle East.
Interestingly, the piece states that Toon chiefs are also keen to improve the corporate and conference facilities inside the stadium, enabling the club to increase our non-match day revenue.
Asked about the challenges they’d face expanding St James’ Park, Lee said: “You’ve got Leazes Terrace which is Grade 1-listed and sitting within a conservation area. The right to light will be a massive part of that as well as the contextual and historical setting. That’s the difficult bit.
“They’ve bought Strawberry Place now, which is good land for redevelopment too. Although again that has a Metro under it which again makes it that bit more complicated.
“If it were me, I’d start by mapping all those bits and trying to create some kind of workable envelope and see what you could get in terms of the capacity you want and the shape you want that would get approval.”
“You’ve only got the Gallowgate and the East Stand to really expand at the current site and they would be pretty vertical which is not a bad thing.
“You would end up with some really interesting bowls and I think that’s the bit where you could start to get really nuanced and create something with genuine authenticity because it’s driven by those constraints rather than the whims of an architect.
“We haven’t done the analysis yet but you could definitely expand. It’s a really interesting challenge. The East Stand is the obvious expansion, it’s where you’d want to expand as well. But you may well end up with a situation like we did at the Aviva where there’s a tiny North Stand because it was the only way we could get the rights to light for the stands to the north.
“Even with those constraints you could comfortably go above 60,000, which is something you’d want to do because there is clearly demand for it.”
Lee then spoke about our decision to remain at St James’ Park, insisting we could “create something amazing” with the right design in place:
“I think it’s a brilliant decision for Newcastle to stay at St James’ Park. There are different attitudes now to what they had a few years ago. The expansion of the Bernabeu by Real Madrid is perfect example. I guess 20 years ago they would have said ‘This is much too hard, let’s move to the outskirts of Madrid and sell the site off and make a fortune’.
“I think generally people want the buildings in their neighbourhoods, and yes that does make it much more complex. It makes us architects work that bit harder rather than having clean, flat sites. But as an architect I find these more complicated jobs much more challenging but much more interesting because of it.”
“With the right design you could create something amazing. Being in the city centre, keeping all the traditions, all the local movements, business and pubs, I think that’s a great, great thing for the city.”
Finally, he then told the i about the increased potential of the stadium if we were to expand beyond just matchdays, revealing how Fulham and Spurs now benefit from recent developments:
“Look at Fulham and the Riverside Stand. It is going to be spectacular and it’s as much about non-event days as it is about event days,” he said.
“If you’re going to build these amazing bars and restaurants and micro breweries they should be built to work seven days a week and it just happens that two nights a week there’s a football game on and the fans use them.
“Daniel Levey calls it ‘sweating the asset’. Look back at what we did at Tottenham, the press conference room was built so it could be used for private hire.
“The press work room is also a cafe. The thinking was if we’re going to put 150 press seats in, don’t make it little cubicles, design it almost like a ‘WeWork’ and turn into a cafe. One half on matchdays is then for press. It’s working those assets, making them realise what the demand and potential is.
“St James’ Park has all of those opportunities to be a banqueting hub, a conferencing hub. The bars and restaurants, if they’re good enough, should be able to operate seven days a week and I think that’s a great opportunity and a great bit of place making for the city.”
