Bam scores £100m victory with Manchester City job

Bam Construct has won the £100m job to build a football academy for Premier League champions Manchester City.

The contractor saw off competition from Laing O’Rourke, Bowmer & Kirkland and Carillion.

The scheme, designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, is on an 80 acre site opposite the football club’s Etihad Stadium, and forms part of a wider project involving the club, Manchester council and regeneration body New East Manchester.

Consultants Capita Symonds, Aecom, BDP, Turner & Townsend and Aedas are among the other firms involved in the project, which is expected to complete in January 2016.

The development, which received planning permission last December, includes a 7,000-seat stadium for youth matches; accommodation for up to 40 young players, who will train and study alongside senior players; training facilities for up to 400 people, including 15 football pitches; staff offices; a media centre; and facilities for the Premier League team, with changing rooms, a gym and a medical centre.

A sixth-form college will be built on the south-west corner.

The win comes as a boost for the firm, which earlier this year reported that turnover was down 9% to £946m in its construction business and that pre-tax profit had fallen a third from £17.1m in 2010 to £11.5m last year.

It also follows the firm’s high-profile role building the £100m Manchester headquarters for the Co-operative Group.

The site previously contained a factory for dye-maker Clayton Aniline and was subject to heavy industrial use until the factory was demolished five years ago. The land is, therefore, heavily contaminated and will require extensive remediation work.

Bam Construct and Manchester City declined to comment.