Arsenal face a monumental set of challenges to expand the Emirates and make their stadium one of the largest in the Premier League – including installing an entirely new roof – but leading architects insist “it’s all possible”.
Co-chairman Josh Kroenke lit a match under fan hopes when he revealed that internal discussions are taking place.
Stadium size and maximising ticket sales and matchday revenues are becoming increasingly important as clubs operate within tight financial margins.
Arsenal also want to capitalise on the success of Mikel Arteta returning the club to regular Premier League title-challengers and Champions League mainstays.
One ambitious option under discussion is adding 20,000 seats, but that means “you’re essentially adding another small stadium on top of it”, Nick Tyrer, an associate director at architects BDP Pattern and the lead designer on Everton’s new Bramley-Moore Dock stadium, tells The i Paper.
And “there’s no end of challenges to making the Emirates one of the biggest stadiums in the country”, his colleague Jon-Scott Kohli, BDP architect director, says.
The logistics of expanding a stadium, that was already a clever feat of architectural design when it was fitted into a tightly congested area of central London, by 30 per cent are complex.
“It’s efficient, everything fits together like a nice puzzle,” Tyrer says. “It’s impressive what they were able to do on that tight site, but the problem with a puzzle that fits nicely together is as soon as you want to make big changes to it, it’s difficult.
“One of the big challenges is there’s an elegant roof that is supported in I think eight places. The whole roof sits on those eight points and if you want to do any kind of expansion you need to remove the structure that’s blocking you, but the only way you can do that is taking the roof off and putting a new wider roof on.”
A roof tends to be the most expensive part of any stadium construction costs, Tyrer explains, and while there are various architectural tricks to upgrade it the most cost-effective decision would probably be to build a new one.
“If it does involve removing and replacing that, say it’s a new roof, you’re building a new roof of an 80,000-capacity stadium,” Tyrer adds. “You’re talking about the realm of a new project, a new stadium from that perspective.”
Technology exists to jack up the existing roof while new seats are added, but the problem remains that where the existing columns are will block the views of new seats.
And Arsenal might have to borrow an idea from their north London rivals to make it work. Cable-net, gravity-stressed tension rings hold many modern stadium roofs in place.
“They work a bit like a bicycle wheel,” explains Kohli. “But whereas the bicycle wheel has all the spokes converging at the centre, if you can imagine a ring and all the spokes coming into the ring.”
Tyrer adds: “It’s the same style roof that Tottenham has. It’s primarily cables that are providing the primary structural element, as opposed to your trusses and other things.”
The magnitude of that job would mean an expansion taking over a year.
And Arsenal will also have to take into consideration the fact the current Emirates roof is designed to fit within height restrictions imposed by planning authorities when it was built. They would have to justify raising the height.
The Emirates was the second biggest stadium in the Premier League when it was opened in July 2006. It cost £390m. But it has since been overtaken by Tottenham building a £1.2bn new ground, West Ham moving into the London Stadium and Liverpool expanding Anfield to 61,276.
They will slip further down the capacity table when Manchester City complete an expansion of the Etihad. Newcastle United and Chelsea are exploring expansions or building new homes.
Transforming the Emirates into an 80,000-seater would overtake Manchester United’s Premier League-leading current Old Trafford capacity. It can accommodate 74,310 fans, although plans are being drawn for either expanding the existing site or building a new stadium altogether.
Nonetheless, based on current figures it would place an expanded Emirates behind only Wembley, the 90,000-capacity national football stadium, and Twickenham, the 82,000-seat home of the national rugby team.
If Arsenal do go down the route of increasing capacity, the cost would likely run into “hundreds of millions”, Kohli says. “You’re almost building another stadium, but you’re building it in the air, so you’ve got all the structure and accommodation that’s going to get you there, plus whatever the council requires for transport.”
It took a great deal of deal-making with local authorities to make the Emirates happen. One of the most considerable outlays on local infrastructure was agreeing to pay for a new £60m recycling centre on Lough Road.
Arsenal committed to invest £1m in local sports facilities after deciding against initial plans to build a club sports centre. The club also built 3,000 homes in the area, claiming 40 per cent were affordable housing.
Arsenal had also agreed to pay for upgrades to Holloway Road and Drayton Park stations, totalling £7.6m, but the overall work required proved too costly and Transport for London instead agreed to pay for the reconstruction of other stations.
Unable to facilitate away travel of that many people, Holloway Road and Drayton Park became exit only after games on matchdays. That may need revisiting under new plans.
Kohli brings up a 3D model of the stadium and surrounding area and points to the existing bridges over the railway lines that pin the stadium in on two sides, and the roads that deliver fans into and out of the stadium.
“In real terms we’re talking about increasing the stadium capacity by a third, so all of these bridges and exits down these streets will be X metres wide, we need a third of that again to get people out of the stadium safely,” Kohli says.
“You’re looking at new bridges and platforms across the rail areas. When you start to take into account you’re doing really substantial structural work and you’re basically building new bridges and pieces of city to get the connection and you’re upgrading transport infrastructure and whatever else the council requires of you because you’ve made your stadium that much taller, this is not a small project.
“An expansion like that isn’t just about making the stadium bigger it’s about changing the whole neighbourhood to be able to handle that influx of people. There’s a lot of money poured into upgrading the Tube facilities when the stadium was opened, so you can expect that kind of investment again in what’s there already.”
It is believed that Arsenal will start by pricing and making a business case for the most ambitious options – the 20,000 expansion representing the height of those – and more likely land somewhere in-between.
Arsenal have a waiting list over 100,000 for season tickets, but most clubs are moving away from substantially increasing season ticket availability when more seats are installed.
Individual match tickets are sold at a much higher price and the fans who buy them tend to spend more money, on merchandise, food and drink, than regular match-goers.
And the hospitality areas at the Emirates are ripe for expansion, the architects say.
“What’s changed in the last 20 years is hospitality trends,” Tyrer says. “Changing demographics, how people want to spend money.
“A move away from traditional hospitality. That’s something quite ingrained in the existing stadium. The full middle tier of lounges and the full ring of boxes at the back. Arsenal are capitalising on being in central London, a lot of corporate clients willing to come. Its excellent for revenue.
“That’s the bit where potentially the club could get the most return from some form of expansion. Something Tottenham does well, something we’re doing on Everton’s new stadium: changing how you approach the experiences and spaces.
“It might be you could do that at the Emirates in a simple way. Sports venues are becoming more about 365, make uses of it every working day rather than once a fortnight. Expanding the stadium more from an accommodation perspective and not from a capacity perspective.
“You could introduce different experiences, lounges, even the concourse, allowing them to break away from the system they currently have and move towards something a bit more dynamic and flexible.”
Kohli adds: “What we learned working with Everton, the drive has been a lot more sophisticated. One time you had general admission seats, a corporate box and maybe an extra lounge with the director’s box. Two or three options about how you might experience the game.
“Now there’s a realisation that stadiums are competing with High Street experiences – bars and restaurants, clubs, other event venues. There’s a real drive to create those types of experiences in stadiums.
“Everyone is different. Some people want to sit in the same seat with the same people, as they have done for 10 years. There are others who want to come once a year and splash out for their birthday and bring all their mates. The best stadiums are catering for those and everything in between.
“That seems a better return on investment for Arsenal to think about their stadium in that way. Maybe they don’t need so many of these types of seats but to work with what they’ve got. They could probably drive better revenue and fan experience by changing those types of things without needing to get to the next size of stadium.”
But if Arsenal do want to go all out and significantly expand capacity, it is unlikely anything will stop them.
“Time, money and political will is what you need,” Kohli says. “If they’ve got all three of those then absolutely.”
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