Next to the arena, which is due to be replaced anyway, huge site not yet developed. Maybe the council knew something in advance?
Arena site and the old Calder leadwork site next to it would be ideal maybe buy up all the car dealerships along railway street and use the old railway lines to form a pedestrian link to the station, it could be epic
Personally still think the best bet would be to redevelop St James’ but in conjunction with the HDQ yard site.
When this first crossed my mind, I thought how terrible if we ended up having to play our home games at the SoS while SJP was being redeveloped...then I thought about that a bit more and realised that there would in fact be no better way to rub their noses in it then to sell out their own stadium every week until we move back to our brilliant new world class SJP.
There is no way they should move the Stadium from its current location. Just do like they did with the Great Mosque in Mecca and add a few more levels. That has a capacity of 4 million kneeling so they have the experience. Toilets are nicer as well and they have free holy water at half time.
Essay time again..... I think a lot will depend on what sort of stadium the new owners want, and what sort of stadium the fans want - though it remains to be seen how much fans' views will be taken into account yet - and also how flexible the council are willing to be to facilitate investment into the city. I think if they went for the option of a state of the art new stadium then that would rule out a couple of the locations mentioned on here due to available space. If we want to keep a city centre stadium then that would rule out the others. Whichever they go for it is going to involve compromising ideals. I would much prefer to see them stay at the current location. It's our spiritual home and the location is ideal. However, it does severely limit the scope of rebuilding a new stadium, and would have done even without selling Strawberry Place. The problem is the width of the space with Leazes Terrace being untouchable (which I agree it should be). When you look at the space taken up by any recent new stadium development then it just wouldn't fit in the space between Barrack Road and Leazes Terrace. It would be very difficult to build anything much bigger than a 60,000 seater stadium in that space, even if they bulldozed it and started from scratch. It would also remain a very cramped stadium for facilities with the stadium taking up all of the available space and concourses narow and cramped. I don't see the Arena site as being viable either. As much as it is a large site, the width available between the old train track corridor (which can't be touched) and the SSSI site above Skinnerburn Road isn't that much bigger than the curent site of St James'. It also has an elevation change of 22m across the site to deal with. That isn't insurmountable on it's own, but it's hard to see how it could be achieved without impacting the SSSI site or without it affecting the stability of the surrounding area and buildings (not a civil engineer so may be wrong about that). Even if it was possible to use that site it would still remain quite cramped in terms of width I think. I also think the ciy would benefit more from that land being used for the propsed homes and breathing life into a virtually uninhabited part of the city. If we are going to move the stadium, I'd love to see us build a sporting complex similar to Sports City in Manchester. The only two places that could be done really is out to the west near to the Falcons ground or on part of the common land in the city. Both have the space to build a proper spaciuos complex that is a pleasure to visit, with world class facilities. I'm not sure we'd get permision to build in any location though. One is on protected greenbelt land and the other has a lot of cultural and historic value as a green space in the city. I'm sure that these issues have all been thought about, particularly with the Reuben brothers involved. I am also sure conversations and early negotiations have started if they are planning something with the stadium.
No chance on common moor land and highly unlikely on green belt. I think the thoughts on the arena site includes the actual arena plot as a new arena planned on Gateshead quayside so easily big enough for huge stadium. Other facilities could stay around where they are now.
Even with the Arena site it is only just over 200 metres wide which is far less than any new stadium when you include the surrounding paving needed outside the stadium. I think it would still be a very limiting factor, especially when you add in all of the extra facilities that you need with a state of the art facility. It's not impossible, but I think it would be very cramped.
Just measuring from google maps from middle of barrack road to the houses on leazes terrace is less than the width at the arena. Fair enough you would be looking at a stadium only but I think it’s the only possible city centre location.
I agree and I think it should definitely be a city centre location. The only other possibility would be if they were willing to 'swap' some of the park area. Move the current site a few hundred metres north and then redevelop St James as park land. I wouldn't want to see the city lose the green space it has with the common land, though I do think it is criminally neglected and could be a much better green space for the city with not very much investment.
I don't really think moving it is that necessary. I mean, I'm sure there is a way it can be expanded and improved upon.
It's not just the arena site though, you have a big brown field site alongside and the ground level drop doesn't matter these days as pitches don't have to be ground level, you could have a whole complex below pitch level even including a flexible use conference venue, arena, car parking, casino, bars, cinema etc, without Strawberry Place the only way to redevelop SJP would be to take it all down and start again, the cost and time element would be huge and where would the club go in the meantime, any other option takes the club out of the city and makes it harder to move fans in and out of the ground.
If we stayed where we are do you think they would put on burgers and beer and ask people to come along with a tool to smarten the place up? Sorry wrong board
I do get that, but the space between the protected train lines to the north of the site and the protected trees on the riverside to the south (SSSI) will severley limit the size of the stadium. There is a huge space in the other direction, but the dimensions on what would be the width of the stadium cannot be extended without moving the river and the trees.
There's also a **** ton of space at Gosforth Park, cracking links to the A1 and decent potential to expand transport links and a hotel on site - and its already owned by RB.
If they did decide to knock down St James' and rebuild then I think they would build the temporary home first. Based on what has happened / is happening at Sports City this isn't as far fetched as it sounds. While they wouldn't be able to develop a single venue sports complex, they may well redevelop something like Gateshead Stadium into a world class athletics venue and use it to house Newcastle while our stadium was rebuilt.
