In these risk-free times, does a £2bn stadium and the glare of the media and ‘one billion fans’ really appeal to contractors? Dave Rogers reports
Plans for Manchester United’s stadium have been revealed and, as expected, the club wants to build a brand new one.
The club’s minority owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, said the scheme could be assembled using prefabricated “modules” transported down the Manchester ship canal, adding that it could be built in five years.
A day after telling the BBC that the club could have run out of money by the end of the year, the projected cost of the 100,000-seat ground has been put at £2bn.
In a high-profile test of the government’s pledge to speed up the planning system, architect Foster + Partners hopes to begin work this year and the club is aiming to move into the new stadium for the 2030/31 season.
To paraphrase Mike Tyson, “everyone has a plan until you meet the English planning system”.
Still, Ratcliffe is looking on the bright side. “Normally, if you were building a 100,000-seater stadium from the ground up, in an area that needs to be regenerated, it’s a 10-year project. But, if we get going with the government, then I think it’s a five-year project, not a 10-year project.”
He added: “It will be a modular build – that means it can be built far more quickly. There are yards which specialise in building very large structures, which are then shipped to locations around the world.”
He is vague about when the work could start. “On the timeline for this, it starts with a discussion.”
Ratcliffe wants it to be iconic, something instantly recognisable. He said: “Everyone around the world knows the Eiffel Tower: you go to Paris, you stay in Paris, you spend money. We have one billion people around the world who follow Manchester United. I think everybody in the world who’s interested in football will want to visit Old Trafford.
“The north of England has won 10 Champions League medals and London has won two, but London has got Wembley, Twickenham, Wimbledon and the Olympic Village. I think the north of England deserves to have a stadium where England can play football, where we can hold a Champions League final.”
Old Trafford has, in fact, hosted a Champions League final, the 2003 game between Juventus and AC Milan.
Ratlciffe’s point is that this was more than 20 years ago and the ground has fallen a long way behind its peers. “If the government really gets behind this regeneration scheme then, with Norman Foster’s vision – in my view the greatest architect in the world – we will build an iconic football stadium.”
But the £2bn question is this: who will build it and under what sort of contract? Surely, for a job of that scale, it has to be construction management. Fixed-price? No thanks, would be the view of pretty much everyone.
Sir Robert McAlpine project director Clare Gallagher worked on the Emirates stadium for Arsenal, which opened in 2006, and later the main 2012 Olympic stadium – both regarded as beacons of success in an area fraught with woe.
“Getting the brief right in the first place is absolutely key,” she told Building in 2022. “If you change it during construction, it presents more challenges. It puts pressure on the budgets and times.
“To get the budget right, you have to get the brief right. FM is absolutely key as well. Stadium security and safety have to be built in, so you have to get the end user involved in the process from the start.”
There is also the issue of what goes inside it. There is scope creep because these are once-in-a-generation investments. The business cases for them are trying to look 20 or 30 years into the future. People want an experience because we live in an experiential world. Technology, and how to keep up with it, is a big thing.
>> See also: To refurb or rebuild: what next for Old Trafford?
>> See also: Old Trafford dilemma: how six other major stadium projects fared
>> See also: Norman Foster and Manchester United – a perfect match?
Three years ago, when United was looking at rebuilding its ground, one contractor said this: “Stadiums go wrong because they are unique designs and, typically, the design isn’t completed at the start. My advice to Manchester United would be this: design it right at the start, don’t rush it and take your time.”
Which firms might be tempted?
Multiplex
About as much chance of building it as Manchester United have of winning this year’s Premier League. So zero, then. Was bidding the Spurs stadium but pulled out because of worries over the roof.
That it was bidding for Spurs was something of a surprise given the Wembley stadium builder was brought to its knees rebuilding the national stadium and, two decades on under the ownership of Canadian asset manager Brookfield, has happily reinvented itself as a City tower builder.
Mace
It could do it. But would it? The Tottenham Stadium builder was behind arguably the most admired ground in England and, maybe, even Europe. The job was late – of course it was, it’s a stadium – but it was built under a CM. Fixed price and it would been a very different story.
Mace’s construction stronghold is in London and its supply chain north of the Watford Gap is not as deep as south of it. And, in any case, it’s big focus has been growing its consultancy business and sticking to its construction knitting.
Does it need the hassle of building a new ground for Manchester United? Interesting fact: chief executive Jason Millett is a Liverpool fan, so he could veto it on moral grounds.
Sir Robert McAlpine
Has the pedigree, having built the Emirates – it opened on time and budget and was undoubtedly helped by being overshadowed by the shenanigans at Wembley – as well as the main stadium for the 2012 Olympic Games. The firm has also rebuilt large parts of Wimbledon.
But will it entertain the idea? An unknown but at this stage, a safe bet would be “unlikely”.
Lendlease
Probably unlikely but makes the list on account of its historic connections to the North-west when it was Bovis. It built the Trafford Centre and is working on the Manchester Town Hall refurbishment.
It has the local connections but, while the stadia experience of its Australian parent is impressive – the Adelaide Oval in Australia and the Sappora Dome in Japan – its parent is selling up and concentrating on Australia instead.
It is unlikely that the new owner, US private equity firm Atlas Holdings, would countenance looking at the job, even though it is due to build a new stand for Crystal Palace.
Laing O’Rourke
Most people’s early frontrunner. Tends to want to get in early, meaning there would be question marks over whether it would want to get into a bidding race. The offsite talk will appeal. It also built Everton’s new ground so has the up-to-date CV.
It has been moving away from high-profile London commercial into more public sector and infrastructure work, but this is the kind of building and engineering challenge it thrives on. However, after a poor set of annual numbers in recent years – a £288m loss followed by a profit of just £18m on a turnover of £4bn – the firm needs to see improvements in its bottom line, so does a football stadium for Manchester United fit that worldview?
Still, it would be a huge surprise if the firm has not already been sounded out about the job.
An overseas firm?
The last time an overseas firm came into the UK to take on a job as high-profile as this was Multiplex and Wembley. Different times, of course, but the firm’s local knowledge of the trades was, clearly, not going to be as good as a firm that had been established for years.
That is the problem that faces any would-be builder from overseas and is why, initially, Multiplex bid Wembley in a joint venture with Bovis.
Bouygues and Vinci helped to build the Stade de France in Paris but it is difficult to see them fancying the Manchester United job, even though both have operations here. As French firms, the Stade de France appealed to national pride. Any bid would be a big surprise.
The overhaul of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Real Madrid’s ground, was carried out by Spanish firm FCC, which was involved in bidding the tunnel under Stonehenge – which has been marred by planning and funding hold-ups. As it is Cheltenham Festival week, any bid would be a non-runner, surely? The same surely apples to Alpine Bau, the Austrian firm behind the Allianz Arena in Munich.
That leaves a US firm. Turner and Aecom, which has a contracting business across the Atlantic, built the widely-admired SoFi stadium on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Nevertheless, unlikely with a capital U.
Maybe the only way that an overseas firm of the sort mentioned above would get involved is to JV with a local contractor?
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