Conygar the possible developers of the fruit market into a Stadium for Bristol Rovers have been granted an extension until July 5th to complete negotiations. If this project goes ahead Rovers will be invited to be partners in the project for a minimal financial return. in return the Memorial stadium will be transferred to Congyar for housing development. This sounds like we are giving up the Mem in return for renting a stadium which will never be ours, a backward step it seems to me The above information was found on Bristol Rovers headed Developer planning to build a new stadium for Bristol Rovers
I see where you're coming from but a long-term lease which guarantees us an income from ticket sales, hospitality etc is as good as it will get for us. Buying land close to Bristol city centre and building a 20k stadium on it would cost around £60 million. Wael is rich but he isn't that rich. Therefore, the only option is to partner with a developer and obtain a long-term lease on a stadium in return for the Mem. We won't own the stadium but a long-term lease on a new 20k stadium in itself would be a significant asset should the club ever be sold. The only other alternative is to develop the Mem. That would come at huge cost and significant disruption (if it even got past planning) and we still wouldn't have a 20k stadium - maybe 17-18.5k.
I am just concerned that we will be back where we were when we left Eastville to go to Bath, owning nothing and at the whim of the landlord
My understanding is that there will be many things being built on the land like a hotel for example among other things. We will be partners with them for the stadium part. They will build everything on the land including the stadium but that will be built at the spec that we want. And we will be funding the stadium project (which will be money and giving them the Mem), so the stadium will be ours but it will be on their land, so they will own the lease. It will basically work similar to how a shared ownership house works. A homeowner of a share ownership house, owns the house but pays rent to the housing association as the house is on there land. The rent will be minimal so profits can still be made and not holding us back. Personally, if the details here are correct, that is a good deal because they won't be able to just remove us like what happened at Coventry and they won't be able to sale the land of the stadium to someone else. Wael is a business guy and built his fortune from assets. He knows what he is doing.
Doubt it will. Too many variables. Not even had public consultation yet. Yet until you see the locals object to it to the council when seeking planning permission. I think we will be stuck at the Mem for years. Best we can do is redevelop the Mem and move out for that period of when the work is being done as they will probably need to turn the pitch around 90 degree's. But even redeveloping the Mem is a slim chance of happening.
The bottom line is that if we want to spend any kind of time above League 1 we have to have an all seater stadium. It’s a painful, long drawn out process but I do believe that we’ll get there in the next 4 years. Whether it’s at the Fruit Market, the Mem or wherever I think that Wael will deliver.
I've just read an interesting thread on Gas Chat about league 1 grounds for the coming season, and something that really surprised me was that despite our concerns about The Mem, it actually has a capacity greater than 10 other 1st division grounds apparently. The video lists our capacity as 12,300.
Don't think it's been 12,300 for quite a few years. It dropped to 11k and then it dropped more due to the new tent family stand in the corner. But that stand has been removed again apparently so that should increase the capacity again. I think its around 10-10,500k.
