Redeveloping Pittodrie - Options

[Glass half full]

29 minutes ago, aberdeen1970 said:

If the council really want the club to stay in the city and be part of the beach regeneration project then the logical solution is for the council to make up the difference between building at Kingsford and building at the beach. 

Maybe in a perfect world, but this isnt a perfect world. If they had any money at all, it should have been to re open the leisure centre which was also an attraction for the benefit of the whole city. 
 

[ullevi]

1 hour ago, muttonhumper said:

Which department of the council do you work in min?

Haha not at all just trying to keep a neutral eye on it and not just constantly blame the council for everything when the club are just as much to blame for the stadium situation,

strangely enough I do the same job as you and we gave a mutual west coat friend😀

 

[aberdeen1970]

1 hour ago, Glass half full said:

Maybe in a perfect world, but this isnt a perfect world. If they had any money at all, it should have been to re open the leisure centre which was also an attraction for the benefit of the whole city. 
 

Other cities make these types of decisions in our imperfect world all the time. 

[Dons79]

5 minutes ago, ullevi said:

Haha not at all just trying to keep a neutral eye on it and not just constantly blame the council for everything when the club are just as much to blame for the stadium situation,

strangely enough I do the same job as you and we gave a mutual west coat friend😀

 

Isn’t Rab by any chance?.

[ullevi]

14 minutes ago, Dons79 said:

Isn’t Rab by any chance?.

No I don’t know anyone from the west coast called Rab

[Dons79]

9 minutes ago, ullevi said:

No I don’t know anyone from the west coast called Rab

More of a pun on the misspelt coat instead of coast. Rab is a coat maker and manufacturer and a man’s name.

that was the joke. Anyway. 

 

 

[dave_min]

3 hours ago, ullevi said:

A council who don’t have money for the basics are meant to bail out a club who have multi millionaires on there board, one who supposedly went bust but would imagine still has a good few quid in the bank and Cormack who sold a business for $500 million plus (I know it’s not all his profit) but the council will bail them out?

That the same council who found £300 million to build an arena out by the airport so that Girls Aloud would visit?

[cheesepipes]

2 minutes ago, dave_min said:

That the same council who found £300 million to build an arena out by the airport so that Girls Aloud would visit?

Money already recouped thru Wine and Lager sales.

[Dunty]

5 hours ago, ullevi said:

What have the council actually done wrong in the whole stadium issue?  

Messed the club around for years with Loirston. The club spent a lot of money on that project only for the council at the 11th hour to basically kill the project by announcing they wanted a school there instead. That was a labour council who did that.

For years they said there was no-where in the city to build. 

Then let's take Labour's Marie Boulton. Was vehemently anti-Kingsford (despite being the independent chair for the meetings), then it was her who announced the club could build at the beach, but only as part of a masterplan that the council can't afford so it was doomed from the beginning.

[Andy_123]

4 hours ago, Dunty said:

Messed the club around for years with Loirston. The club spent a lot of money on that project only for the council at the 11th hour to basically kill the project by announcing they wanted a school there instead. That was a labour council who did that.

For years they said there was no-where in the city to build. 

Then let's take Labour's Marie Boulton. Was vehemently anti-Kingsford (despite being the independent chair for the meetings), then it was her who announced the club could build at the beach, but only as part of a masterplan that the council can't afford so it was doomed from the beginning.

Anyone with any sense has always known the ‘plans’ for building at the beach were always a no go because of this.

[sheepcrooky]

5 hours ago, dave_min said:

That the same council who found £300 million to build an arena out by the airport so that Girls Aloud would visit?

That was a great concert. 

[RDS]

8 hours ago, ullevi said:

A council who don’t have money for the basics are meant to bail out a club who have multi millionaires on there board, one who supposedly went bust but would imagine still has a good few quid in the bank and Cormack who sold a business for $500 million plus (I know it’s not all his profit) but the council will bail them out?

Stewart Milne never went bust personally. The company and subsidiaries bearing his name did but he'd sold bulk of it off years before it went under

[G31DON]

23 minutes ago, RDS said:

Stewart Milne never went bust personally. The company and subsidiaries bearing his name did but he'd sold bulk of it off years before it went under

Has anyone bought his house yet? 

[Broken_Glass]

21 hours ago, ullevi said:

A council who don’t have money for the basics are meant to bail out a club who have multi millionaires on there board, one who supposedly went bust but would imagine still has a good few quid in the bank and Cormack who sold a business for $500 million plus (I know it’s not all his profit) but the council will bail them out?

A very shallow and ill thought out response when you look at the bigger picture and what it would mean to the area and the city.

[Andy_123]

Article in the P&J with both sides blaming each other for lack of progress with the new stadium plans.

Current council unwilling to foot half the bill for redesigning the stadium to include whatever extras they want added is what it reads like.

[dave_min]

42 minutes ago, Andy_123 said:

Article in the P&J with both sides blaming each other for lack of progress with the new stadium plans.

Current council unwilling to foot half the bill for redesigning the stadium to include whatever extras they want added is what it reads like.

We should get that local businessman Trump onto the cooncil, he’d sort it all with a single phone call.

[NEM]

6 minutes ago, dave_min said:

We should get that local businessman Trump onto the cooncil, he’d sort it all with a single phone call.

With the added bonus of weeding out all the benders in our support 😄

[huncunts]

Very long article but the important parts. The club don't want to build a standalone stadium. The club and the council don't want to pay around £2m each required to take plans further. The council are not closed to contributing towards a community stadium. So the club don't want to build their own stadium, nor pay for plans for a community stadium the council say they could pay towards. 

 

Council: "It’s fair to say that if we were going to go any further, looking at a great level of detail, that would be when significant costs begin to rack up.

The cost of any further investigation would need to be shared between the council and Aberdeen FC.

And I don’t think both parties are at that point where either are willing to put their hand in their pockets and take the exploration further.

There will be significant costs and there’s obviously a significant risk associated with taking that forward. There can never be a firm commitment from the council to deliver on that investment that stand the test of time. The make up of the council can change, the leadership of the council can change. But certainly the SNP and Liberal Democrats are committed to exploring all options to keep the football club at the beach."

The Press and Journal understands the accumulative cost of that joint design work would be something like £4m. And it’s this £2m each – if it’s to be split down the middle – price that is suggested to be the stumbling block.

"I think we need to be quite clear that to move forward, there would be costs of millions of pounds for each of us – Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeen FC – to explore the option.

Aberdeen City Council has a capital programme of hundreds of millions of pounds. And certainly, if there was a willingness from Aberdeen FC to look at detailed design, that’s something the council could consider as part of its budget moving forward."

But I guess the simpler option perhaps would be the club having plans for a standalone football stadium, we would certainly welcome discussions on how we can facilitate that at the beach.

That option remains on the table. It always has been. If Aberdeen FC wants to deliver to a football stadium at the beach themselves, we would be more than happy to sit down and see how we can assist them given the land ownership sits with the council.

Though the idea may have been “on the table”, it has never been part of Aberdeen FC’s plan for a new seafront ground. It has always been pitched as a “community stadium”, with an accompanying leisure centre and other benefits for locals. This, crucially, is why the club believes the cost should be shared. And if the ball was put in Aberdeen FC’s court to go it on their own without city support… it wasn’t long before Pittodrie chiefs hoofed it right back.

A club spokeswoman raged: "It's never been our intention to build a stand-alone stadium at the beach.

The previous political administration of Aberdeen City Council approached the club about being a key stakeholder in and tenant for an anchor project that would be the catalyst for the wider regeneration of the beachfront.

Aberdeen FC invested considerable executive time, over three years, on working with the council to develop plans for an integrated leisure complex and community stadium.

In its manifesto, the SNP pledged to support a community stadium at the beach if it was economically viable.

Aberdeen FC shared the costs of an independent economic impact study which revealed that a community stadium with associated leisure facilities would deliver more than £1bn plus into the local economy over 50 years.

However, the current administration has scaled back their plans for the beachfront – which is absolutely their prerogative. But it’s disingenuous to suggest that the club is either stalling the process or not prepared to pay our share. The club has spent £5m on various plans for a new stadium in three separate locations. We’re not prepared to incur any further costs on plans which end up becoming a political football."

Mr McLellan is keen to make the council administration’s stance clear.

It’s no longer the point blank refusal to pay for any of the stadium that it once seemed. But it would require Dons cash to part with more cash upfront.

The finance convener tells us: "If we’re looking at collaboration on a much larger facility with significant community benefit, there may be a scenario where the council funds part of it. Detail would certainly need to be fleshed out. And there would need to be significant community benefits from any development which the council was contributing towards.

We would need to be really clear that this would be a community building, for the community, so people were getting the best use of it. It would be a football stadium that’s not just open on a Saturday for football but seven days a week for people to use."

Aberdeen FC countered: "We believe an integrated leisure complex and community stadium would be a major piece of infrastructure that enables the city to attract and retain the companies and people it needs to be at the forefront of the energy transition. But making this happen and raising the funding requires ambition and the political will."

[Don Shula]

I wouldn't trust the council as far as I can spit

[Red Clive 1995]

Stick a roof over the wedge and crack on. Pittodrie crowds will be dwindling anyway next 6 months.

[Broken_Glass]

I think the line "play political football" sums this whole venture up. File that in the bin and do your own thing AFC.

[huncunts]

Just now, Broken_Glass said:

I think the line "play political football" sums this whole venture up. File that in the bin and do your own thing AFC.

They don't want to do anything. It's all bluster to kick the can down the road till Burrows and Cormack leave and someone else can spend their time and money on it. 

[EH11Red]

6 minutes ago, Red Clive 1995 said:

Stick a roof over the wedge and crack on. Pittodrie crowds will be dwindling anyway next 6 months.

Do you ever say anything remotely positive ever ? You seem to enjoy the bad times more than the good. 

[Red Clive 1995]

5 minutes ago, EH11Red said:

Do you ever say anything remotely positive ever ? You seem to enjoy the bad times more than the good. 

It’s realistic thought process, spend huge amount of money on a shiny stadium will likely put the side on the pitch backwards. It’s quite simple why we don’t have a new stadium yet. We just can’t afford it. All this procrastinating about one is so silly. 
 

Crowds will definitely drop as they’ve been at unrealistic highs this season. Again just pointing out that crowds are away to drop. 

[dave_min]

Mortgage on the new stadium will be less than we are currently paying to look after the old girl.

New stadium = more cash to spend on the first team.

Maybe if crowds turned up they’d get a ticket at Tannadice 

[WesthillWanderersFC]

2 hours ago, NEM said:

With the added bonus of weeding out all the benders in our support 😄

Come on now, if you got rid of the subservient Tory shitebag weasels who like to sit in the corner & do as their told, the support would halve. 

[Red Clive 1995]

32 minutes ago, dave_min said:

Mortgage on the new stadium will be less than we are currently paying to look after the old girl.

New stadium = more cash to spend on the first team.

Maybe if crowds turned up they’d get a ticket at Tannadice 

I struggle to believe that. But if true that’s staggering. 
 

I’ve came to peace that I’ve been locked out of United game. Chances are we will get pumped, I’ll watch it at home and switch off when it becomes embarrassing.

[Tord31]

Get it built wherever and crack on.

*Crack on being 20+ years time

[Rubin]

Present chairman is every bit as disappointing as the previous.

IMO

[Ernie McCracken]

 

39 minutes ago, Tord31 said:

Get it built wherever and crack on.

*Crack on being 20+ years time

Trusting the council. Priceless.

For everything else there's Mastercard