You have to admit that Lowe must have driven a very hard bargain with Barr Construction, or St Marys is one crappily built stadium. I don't quite believe it it is the latter although I've heard vague noises about it. Probably people guessing as to why it was so cheap, rather than hard facts.
over 12 years the extra seats have probably brought in something like 50-60m extra revenue. extremely rough estimate. walcott, bale, and chamberlain together probably got us 30m between them. edit: it's 13 years. that would make it 54-65m, i suppose
Barr were winning the contracts for most of the new stadiums at that time by simply being the lowest bidder (no pun). And yes, St Mary's is pretty poorly built, although fundamentally, 3/4 of the stadium is incredibly basic architecture & construction. The innerds of the Itchen Stand have been revamped at least twice since construction, partly for changes, but also to address some design issues. I believe the external steelwork had corrosion issues (the cantilever white roof supports). Some talk of "concrete cancer" in some areas. The cladding was/is dirt cheap and you can see it's in a poor state all round the stadium. Barr almost went bust about 10 years ago, but since then, they've done some big projects like the 2012 Basketball arena (which was only a temporary building anyway).
The price of materials has significantly increased since 1999/2000/2001 when St Mary's was being built.
Yes v true and as CBK says SMS might be significant but the structure and finish is pretty basic, concrete with crinkly tin cladding. Conversely Staplewood is pretty high end in terms of materials even on the exterior alone, let alone everything that is going inside. I can't imagine they will skimp on much. In terms of more recent grounds I think the AMEX cost about £100m ?
Apart from everything being dearer now, the new academy buildings are high spec and energy efficient. Also building regs have changed...as revealed by the foundations on the old dome being discovered to be insufficient. Lowe built everything on the cheap...which I understand as it was the mortgage on the place that nearly bankrupted us.
It was the overdraft at Barclays that pushed us into administration. The mortage on SMS was still being repaid without issues.
Was 3 dots, still 3 dots. They've not done anything since the last update. Too many cups of tea these builders. When is this glitch/bug going to be fixed? I can't see pictures with swear filter on or off. I only have a choice of seeing 3 dots (filter on) or blank space (filter off)
The King Power Stadium [Leicester City], finished just one year later, cost £37M. It is of similar size and construction. I mention it as an indicator of price trends.
In terms of generating revenue, I think having St. Mary's was a key factor in appealing to Markus Liebherr back in the administration days, and therefore in a roundabout way it generated a billionaire owner. Imagine if we'd still been at The Dell.
