Why Everton FC’s new stadium will be more than just a fan base

Evertonian or not, football fan or not, the CGI fly-through of the club’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, north Liverpool, might just give you goosebumps. Seeing how the stadium will look beside the Mersey is seriously impressive, as is the tour of the expansive hospitality spaces for fans. But it is the build-up of crowd noise that casts the spell. Before you know it, you’re striding through the players’ tunnel and on to the pitch. The fly-through then zips to a perfect view from the stands of the very first goal in the new stadium – met, of course, with a primeval roar from the CGI crowd. The prospect of that goal is now looking tantalisingly real. Following the largest commercial public consultations to have taken place in the city region – attracting more than 60,000 people – Liverpool City Council unanimously approved Everton’s plans for the 52,888-capacity waterfront arena on 23 February – more than three years after the semi-derelict dock site was identified as the only available site in the city that met the club’s criteria. A month later, Robert Jenrick, the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, announced that he would not call in the decision. That positive news was much needed by the city, coming just days after a damning government report on the running of Liverpool City Council – including its planning and regeneration departments. Government support for the stadium means the Premier League club can complete its agreed acquisition of the 15-acre site from Peel L&P and the funding solution for the project. Everton hopes to make the two-mile move from Goodison Park for the 2024-25 season. “A new stadium is key to our future and is a key part of our long-term strategic vision,” says stadium development director Colin Chong. Goodison Park’s record attendance of 78,000 was achieved more than 70 years ago and its capacity has been dropping ever since to meet safety and accessibility regulations. It now stands at less than 40,000. “When fans were in attendance, we were sold out for every Premier League home match, and when fans return the demand will continue to far exceed supply,” says Chong. “The limitations to the matchday offer, which include nearly 60% of our seats having a restricted or obstructed view and not being able to increase our hospitality offering, means our current matchday revenue falls behind our competitors.” The new stadium will offer the club a platform for revenue growth from an increased capacity, a more diverse hospitality offer, new commercial partnership opportunities and other uses such as concerts when the stadium is not being used for its primary purpose: playing football in front of more than 52,000 passionate fans. What Everton is also pinning its hopes on, of course, is that the new stadium will help it challenge for and win major honours. “Our club has a rich history, a passionate global fanbase and a world-class manager [Carlo Ancelotti] attracting young international talent. We need to be competing at the highest level,” says Chong. “While the stadium offers a range of lucrative commercial opportunities that we must grasp, it can also help us achieve our sporting ambitions by allowing us to attract and retain top-notch playing and coaching talent, as well as making the new home a fortress with more fans guiding the team to new levels.” Addressing all of these issues by moving the club to a new stadium has been a consistent driver for Everton’s owner Farhad Moshiri, the British-Iranian businessman, since becoming a shareholder in 2016, according to the Liverpool Echo. Managers and players have come and gone in what has been a difficult period on the pitch for the club, but Moshiri has not wavered in his commitment to the project – even during the pandemic. In December, it was announced that he would inject a further £250m into Everton through the issue of new shares, taking his stake to 93.3%. This mix of new cash and conversions of loans was designed to strengthen the club’s position to secure finance for the new stadium, likely to cost in the region of £500m. The latest turmoil in international football – from the revamp of the UEFA Champions League to the breakaway Super League debacle – only serves to highlight even more the need for Everton to secure its future. But as Everton chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale explains below, the project is also about much more than football. It will act as a catalyst for the rest of Peel L&P’s plans for Liverpool Waters and a stimulus for North Liverpool. “Bramley-Moore Dock is a unique location in close proximity to the city centre, allowing for the development of enhanced transport links to both Liverpool and Sefton,” explains Chong. “Due to the size, scale and impact of the stadium development, it offers a natural opportunity to grow the city centre north leading to much-needed regeneration in north Liverpool.” Indeed, the Kirkdale and County wards in which Everton resides is within the most deprived 5% of neighbourhoods nationally. More than half of the children in the area live in poverty, while the area in general faces challenges such as high unemployment, crime, health inequalities, poor housing stock and low education attainment. “Our high-profile project will provide huge impetus to the government’s desire to ‘level up’ the country and boost the Northern Powerhouse by delivering large-scale investment, a huge number of jobs and training opportunities – as well as inclusive growth,” says Chong. “All of which are challenges our city region was struggling to address pre-coronavirus.” As Everton strives to play its part in tackling these challenges, you can bet the world will be watching – Premier League football is watched by nearly a billion people every week in some 200 countries. “Just imagine the visual shots of the first Merseyside derby at Bramley-Moore Dock beamed globally, hovering over the River Mersey, taking in Everton’s new stadium, set within Liverpool’s world-famous skyline,” says Chong.  Now that really would cause some goosebumps. Liverpool Waters – the bigger picture Peel L&P’s Liverpool Waters regeneration project spans 150 acres of the city’s historic docklands and executive director of development James Whittaker says there is still another 20 years of development to come across the site. Peel secured outline planning permission nine years ago for 10,000 new homes and 3m sq ft of commercial space. Since then it has been concentrating its efforts around Princes Dock (pictured), the part of Liverpool Waters closest to The Three Graces – the harbourside ensemble of three iconic buildings from the early 1900s. Over the past four years, three residential developments have been delivered, including Regenda’s 105-home build-to-rent scheme Plaza 1821. Moda Living’s The Lexington will complete in August this year, delivering a further 325 BTR flats. Land has also been earmarked at Princes Dock for the local authority to develop the Liverpool Cruise Liner Terminal and a hotel, but the pandemic has put a question mark over this. “Hopefully over the next six months we’ll see that come back to the table, but clearly it’s still subject to funding. It will be really positive for the city region if it does come forward,” Whittaker says. The Central Docks neighbourhood, which will include one of the largest parks outside London, is moving forward, however. A new link road, Jesse Hartley Way, has been completed and the new Isle of Man Ferry terminal is on-site now and expected to complete in 2022. Developments in the pipeline include Romal Capital’s proposals for a new £100m neighbourhood. Despite criticism from some quarters, Peel remains committed to high-density homes on the site. “We’d rather deliver high-density homes than unlock and roll the greenbelt,” says Whittaker. Peel is also on-site with a district heating network to meet its sustainability and ESG targets. Going forward, Whittaker says Peel is now talking with many more developers. He wants to bring family homes on to the site and a full range of tenures over the next 10 years. “We want to work with housing associations to deliver affordable homes, we want to work with unique developers like Urban Splash to deliver family homes and modular units, but then also the traditional BTR institutions. “We have the experience in terms of build-to-rent on the forward-funding model, so we like to work with institutions delivering our own product. But we also like [to bring in] different developers, offering different products. I think that’s what we want to see at the end of the day: choice for people,” Whittaker says. That includes the elderly and those in need of care. “We believe locations like Liverpool Waters should be developed for those facilities, mainly because they’re connected into city centres, to amenity spaces and leisure attractions and activities,” Whittaker says.  As well as working with different developers, Peel is also looking at delivering such schemes itself by putting together a new business platform – much like it did for logistics. “I think there’s a lot of improvements to be made in that area in terms of how the combination of care and elderly living can be incorporated together, providing amenities and community hubs and space – but intermingling that with communities,” he says. The future of Goodison Park Goodison Park won’t be sold off to the highest bidder to create a supermarket or housing estate – the club will instead work on innovative plans with partners to benefit local people. “We have held focus groups, drop-in sessions and consultations with the local community to identify what the local people feel their area needs now, and in the future, and the plan is to use the space left behind at Goodison Park to create these facilities,” says stadium development director Colin Chong. The club has received outline planning permission to deliver a regeneration initiative at the site. This would create new housing, health facilities, education amenities, sheltered housing for elderly people, a youth zone and business start-up facilities. There will also be a tribute to Goodison Park, with plans to keep the current centre circle as open green space. “Our plans will see Everton and its official charity Everton in the Community further embedded within the community it has called home for generations,” says Chong. “This will complement the £10m of investment the club and Everton in the Community has already made by converting derelict buildings and land into thriving community assets including The Everton Free School, The People’s Hub community centre, The Blue Base function space and the soon-to-be-built mental health support facility The People’s Place.” The plans are still at an early stage and cannot be progressed until the playing side of the club move to Bramley-Moore Dock. Prof Denise Barrett-Baxendale, MBE, chief executive, Everton Football Club COMMENT Liverpool is a remarkable city; vibrant, passionate, altruistic and surprising. It is renowned for its friendly people but also home to some of the nation’s best arts, culture and nightlife, stunning buildings and architecture, a fascinating maritime history and, of course, an unrivalled sporting pedigree led by two Premier League football clubs. Football is a major part of life in Liverpool. It is deeply engrained in the fabric of our communities, offering not just a sporting outlet for supporters but social cohesion, companionship and an economic driver through jobs for local people and tourism. So when one of those football clubs moves to a new stadium, it creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity that must be harnessed, to not only benefit the club but its wider community as well. That is why I am proud Everton’s plans for a state-of-the-art 52,888-capacity stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will deliver more than just a footballing or sporting landmark on Liverpool’s world-famous waterfront. It will be a transformational development that will provide much-needed public benefits to not only the Liverpool City Region but the North of England and the UK as a whole. Nationally, the Premier League generates £7.6bn for our country’s economy and, as a founder member of the Football and Premier Leagues – and one of only six clubs to have played every Premier League season since its formation in 1992 – Everton has always been at the forefront of sport as a force for good. Now as our country battles to defeat Covid-19 and emerge stronger than ever, everyone here at Everton embraces the responsibility and the vital role our new stadium can play in the nation’s post-pandemic recovery. Property consultancy CBRE has carried out research that indicates that our stadium project would deliver a £1.3bn boost to the economy, the potential for more than 15,000 new jobs (up to 12,000 during the construction phase), and £32m of income to local families. The project will also help attract and accelerate other developments in the area, worth an additional £650m. Liverpool City Council’s much-needed council tax receipts would be boosted by more than £2.2m annually, and there would be an uplift of up to £1.7m in business rates income. Finally, when the country is fully recovered, it is estimated that a new stadium will help attract 1.4m visitors to the city. Everton is proud of its strong commitment to regeneration, preserving culture and heritage, and creating positive social value. The stadium development is part of what has been called “The People’s Project”, incorporating a new home for the club and also an innovative community-led legacy development on the site of our current stadium, Goodison Park. That legacy will maintain our presence in a part of Liverpool we have called home for almost 130 years and comprise housing, health, community retail, education and youth facilities, all with the aim of building on our unique reputation in football as “The People’s Club”. People may think that taking on the role of property developer might be alien to a football club. However, over the past six years, the club and our pioneering official charity, Everton in the Community, has invested more than £10m into converting derelict buildings and land into thriving education, social and community facilities. Football is so much more than a beautiful game. It can – and should – be a force for good and deliver tangible community and societal benefits beyond the creation of jobs and a positive economic impact. It is estimated that a new stadium move, combined with a community-led regeneration of Goodison Park, will generate £237m of societal value for Liverpool. While the global pandemic created a period of transition for both the football and development industries, we continued preparing our planning application and consulting with stakeholders. Throughout this period, just like any developer, we had to appreciate that not everything was directly in our control. But we remained on track to deliver what was required of us internally and as a project team. Planning approval came after a long period of consultation that saw overwhelming support from both sides of the House of Commons and House of Lords, the backing of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Premier League and the FA, and support from both local mayors (City and City Region), Liverpool’s business community, the people of the Liverpool City Region – regardless of their football allegiances – and, of course, our own supporters. Hundreds of thousands of Everton supporters around the world have helped shape and guide us to this point in our journey. We have worked extensively with them to ensure that our new stadium will harness the passion and roars of our fans as we aim to create a matchday like no other. We have looked at stadiums around the world to understand what makes them iconic, and what we can learn – starting with Goodison Park. The efficiency of European stadiums, the grandeur of those in the Middle East, the technology-filled venues of the Far East, the fan-orientated offerings in North America and the passion inspiring arenas of South America – we will take inspiration from them all. While there is still a lot of work to do in the coming months and years, it is so exciting to be at the true starting line of this project, knowing what lies ahead of us. To send feedback, e-mail julia.cahill@eg.co.uk or tweet @EGJuliaC or @EGPropertyNews