The Soccer Blogger
Liverpool Football Club unveiled their plans for their new 60,000-seat stadium in Stanley Park on Wednesday.
The official planning application was submitted by The Reds to Liverpool City Council for the new ground and they are hoping to move in in 3 years time in 2010.
Central to their new plans is the potential to further expand the stadium’s capacity to 78,000 seats in the future however this is “dependent on improvements to the local transport infrastructure”.
As the club look to re-generate the atmosphere of Anfield, the new plans also include, as was expected, an 18,000-capacity, single-tier Kop.
Liverpool’s new co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett had made the new stadium one of their top priorities after arriving at the club and they ordered a review of the original plans for the new ground.
Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry confirmed the ambitious plans for the new stadium which is set to cost in the region of £300million.
“It has always been the aim of the club, with the backing of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to be world class both on and off the pitch,” he said.
“When they took over, the first thing Tom and George wanted to do was review the stadium both in terms of the design and the capacity.
“This is the immensely impressive result of their deliberations. We’re creating a stadium that not only the club and supporters can be proud of, but something the whole city can be proud of. Liverpool as a city is on the move and deserves world-class developments like this.
“Our architects HKS have a wealth of experience and have fused a very contemporary and unique vision together with the values that are crucial to Liverpool Football Club.
“A critical design consideration was to ensure the stadium sat naturally within its park environment, complementing its surroundings and a huge amount of work has been done to ensure this happens.
“The stadium is a massive investment in North Liverpool and a key driver in the regeneration of the whole area.
“We’ve also recognised the central importance of the Kop.
“It will have a significantly increased capacity of 18,000 seats in a single-tier structure that will be the heartbeat of the new stadium.
“The rake of the stand will be steeper and the seats tighter together, with the acoustics of the roof designed to accentuate the atmosphere during games.”
Liverpool’s captain Steven Gerrard said,
“I knew it was going to be great but after spending five minutes looking at the plans I was just completely blown away by it.
“It’s amazing and the best thing about it is that it’s so different to any other. We will have our own identity stamped all over this stadium and that’s how it should be.
“We are Liverpool Football Club. We expect the best and this will be the best.”
Whilst Liverpool’s manager Rafa Benítez added,
“The plans for the new stadium are absolutely fantastic.
“The facilities the new stadium will provide are going to ensure that the future of this club is a great one and this is what the fans deserve.
“There are a lot of windows and it really is ground-breaking in terms of stadium design.”
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