Emirates Stadium Possible Expansion to 100,000 Seats

Faizl89 · Post by **Faizl89** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 5:21 am

Found this article online, interesting...

posted Mar 21, 2010
Yes an expansion is possible

I work with one of the architects who helped design and build the new Arsenal stadium and even lived onsite while it was being built, so if anyone knows the facts he does and so will you now!

(I have bombarded him with questions and the following is what I have been told)

The stadium can be expanded and will, it is only a matter of time. This was a pre-required specification of the design to allow it to be future-proof. It was originally designed to be an 80,000 seater stadium with a retractable roof, but because of Islington council objection and time to build as well as cost, it is now at 60,000 capacity. Let us be honest, it is a good jump in size from 38,000 as Highbury was.

The area around the pitch can be utilised for seating if needed and would provide up to 5,000 more seats. For new stadium regulations, this area is required to be free of seating however. This is a good thing as stadiums that will be selected for the 2018 World Cup have to adhere to this rule, eg Wembly as another stadium.

Regarding expanding the stadium, there are a few simple ways this can be done. Emirates Stadium is a four-tiered design, simply adding an extra tier(just like the overlapping tier between the first and second tier) will add the capacity required or simply to keep adding steps to the original stadium as it is, ie increase the steps from the back row.

There are approximately 1,000 seats in the last row of the stadium. If you take an extra 10 steps upwards, then that would be 10,000 seats. Another factor to look at is the height of the stadium. Rules in building it were it had to be of a maximum height, which it is below now anyway as the stadium was built below ground level.

Getting back to the maximum capacity, it would take 40 steps to add 40,000 seats (This is a conservative estimate) and bring the total capacity to over 100,000 if necessary. There are 45,000 or so on the waiting list at the moment...
Regarding the height, if each step up is about 12 inches, this means it would be forty feet more than it is now. This does not seem excessive.

The roof will need to be removed and a new roof replacing it, but as you can see it is not a nightmare architectually speaking.

I can go on and on, with statistics and figures etc.

The bottom line is that once the underground, overground and road infrastructure is improved in future (Arsenal has to live up to their original promises) then we can see it happening.

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i think arsenal definitely have the resources to do that fans and money.

hugh jardon · Post by **hugh jardon** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 6:45 am

Is this a wind up? In the current upper tier you can barely see the players, its like watching a game of Subbuteo.

40 extra rows? The current walk up the steps to the seats is already unbearable, they'd have to install some Thora Herd stairlifts.

spinney12 · Post by **spinney12** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 7:22 am

To be fair is be in favor of this. Potentially could make for a more affordable tier to make it more accessable to more fans

augie · Post by **augie** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 7:53 am

spinney12 wrote:To be fair is be in favor of this. Potentially could make for a more affordable tier to make it more accessable to more fans

More affordable ? This would be a move to rake in money so dont believe for a nano-second that the seats will be cheap. Still have to say that I neither believe that it will happen or is even possible but if I am wrong it would somewhat deflate the belief of those that are supporting the club policy of "get in as much money as possible while spending fcuk all" cos we will soon be overloaded with money cos debt will be cleared

gunner_ace · Post by **gunner_ace** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 8:26 am

They wanna be fixing the leaky roof in the clock end before they think about anything else.
Did anyone else see the drenching about 10 people got at the wolves game? It took them about 5 minutes before the gormless halfwits actually got up and moved away from the waterfall that was leaking onto their heads. So funny

Reg Niseth · Post by **Reg Niseth** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 8:44 am

The council won't allow it. We originally wanted 70,000 but had to settle for 60,000. However, the easiest and cheapest way of increasing the capacity would be to removed the seats and place with smaller ones.

We have the widest seats in Europe.

Boomer · Post by **Boomer** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:42 am

Need to be able to fill 60k before thinking of increasing it.

digger · Post by **digger** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:59 am

Boomer wrote:Need to be able to fill 60k before thinking of increasing it.

Exactly. 60,000 is about right. We'd fill 100,000 very very occasionally.

Rugby Gooner · Post by **Rugby Gooner** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:12 am

spinney12 wrote:To be fair is be in favor of this. Potentially could make for a more affordable tier to make it more accessable to more fans

Are you sure that you don't mean more seats for Japanese tourists!

TeeCee · Post by **TeeCee** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:21 am

Reg is right, it was stipulated by the council in the meetings pre-building that the stadium would not be expanded past it's current capacity. The Emirates will not have it's capacity increased in our lifetime by increasing the size or number of rows etc.

kg1794 · Post by **kg1794** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:24 am

TeeCee wrote:Reg is right, it was stipulated by the council in the meetings pre-building that the stadium would not be expanded past it's current capacity. The Emirates will not have it's capacity increased in our lifetime by increasing the size or number of rows etc.

Have you got a source for that? "We promise to never expand the ground past this capacity" seems a bit of a silly thing to agree to.

Post by **HashKads** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:29 am

When I went on the stadium tour at the Grove, the tour guide seemed pretty insistant that it wasn't possible to expand. Although, I had the impression they were talking shit a lot of the time.

Boomer · Post by **Boomer** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:31 am

Again what's the point. We struggle to fill 60K

Untill the club sorts out ticket prices and the cup credit system we won't be filling 60K in the reply against the O's

clockendal · Post by **clockendal** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:32 am

kg1794 wrote:
TeeCee wrote:Reg is right, it was stipulated by the council in the meetings pre-building that the stadium would not be expanded past it's current capacity. The Emirates will not have it's capacity increased in our lifetime by increasing the size or number of rows etc.
Have you got a source for that? "We promise to never expand the ground past this capacity" seems a bit of a silly thing to agree to.

I did the emirates stadium legends tour with Charlie George and he said the same thing.

It's not a silly thing to agree to, the transport infastructure couldn't cope with an increased capacity. It's jam packed round there as it is on a match day.

It won't happen. End of.

Post by **flash gunner** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:33 am

clockendal wrote:
kg1794 wrote:
TeeCee wrote:Reg is right, it was stipulated by the council in the meetings pre-building that the stadium would not be expanded past it's current capacity. The Emirates will not have it's capacity increased in our lifetime by increasing the size or number of rows etc.
Have you got a source for that? "We promise to never expand the ground past this capacity" seems a bit of a silly thing to agree to.
I did the emirates stadium legends tour with Charlie George and he said the same thing.

It's not a silly thing to agree to, the transport infastructure couldn't cope with an increased capacity. It's jam packed round there as it is on a match day.

It won't happen. End of.

Agree with the above, i think it was one of the things the club had to agree to or permission for the stadium wouldnt have been accepted