CPL Stadium Thread

[Macksam]

Discuss CPL stadiums that are confirmed, rumoured and post pics of ones from around the world you'd think would be ideal for certain cities.

So far we have the following:

Confirmed:

Hamilton - Tim Horton's Field

Halifax - Downtown modular stadium

Rumoured:

Winnipeg - Investor's Group Field

Regina - New Mosaic

Ottawa - TD

Calgary - McMahon

[Macksam]

With Atlanta NASL 2018 building a 15,000 seat stadium, I strongly feel CPL cities that don't have one should be gunning for something similar. Poland has some nice recently built stadiums in that range for their upcoming EURO U21 this summer.

Stadion Gosir - 15,139 capacity and the stands are steep.

 

 

[Macksam]

Arena Lublin - 15,500 seats.

 

[Macksam]

Tychy City Stadium, 15,300 seats, looks more complete and expensive than the previous two.

 

[Macksam]

Stadion Zagłębia Lubin - 16,068 capacity

 

 

[Macksam]

For Toronto CPL, take things up a notch with Noordlease Stadium, formerly known as Euroborg, 22,329 seats. I like this one, steep stands, great atmosphere. Bill Manning would have a panic attack if he saw something like this getting approved and built in the GTA.

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by Macksam

[grasshopper1917]

I think for many markets 10,000 (or smaller) would be more suitable. Here is a fairly simple one (about 9500) where the Estonia National Team plays. 

 

[Levi Oakey]

I would suggest starting even smaller. Like the Franz-Kremer Stadion:

http://stadiumdb.com/stadiums/ger/franz_kremer_stadion

Seat's 1900, has the standing ring around to make it more explandable. Any of those sides could be upgrade as the stands fill.

 

 

[Gopherbashi]

Queen's rebuilt their football stadium last year after the old one had been condemned.  I went there for the home opener and thought it could be a great CPL starter stadium.  Seating on three sides with an open north end (could use it for a beer garden), decent TV angle from the broadcast tower (can't see the top of the stands on the far side), sits about 8500 or so (though I believe that's including future seating at that north end).  Cost about $20m including the teardown of the old structure.

Only thing I'd want to add is a roof - that stadium cleared out awfully fast when the cold October downpour hit at halftime.

Previous one that was condemned (those fenced-off upper bleachers were the "structurally unsafe" part)

The even-more-previous one (complete with soccer net!)

[Gopherbashi]

29 minutes ago, Levi Oakey said:

I would suggest starting even smaller. Like the Franz-Kremer Stadion:

http://stadiumdb.com/stadiums/ger/franz_kremer_stadion

Seat's 1900, has the standing ring around to make it more explandable. Any of those sides could be upgrade as the stands fill.

 

 

Added some pictures for you since yours didn't show up.

The covered area doesn't look too bad, but I think we'll need something better than concrete steps to sit on if we want this to fly on a professional level.

Nice to know that it can keep the snow off though!

Edited March 3, 2017 by Gopherbashi

[Complete Homer]

6 minutes ago, Gopherbashi said:

Queen's rebuilt their football stadium last year after the old one had been condemned.  I went there for the home opener and thought it could be a great CPL starter stadium.  Seating on three sides with an open north end (could use it for a beer garden), decent TV angle from the broadcast tower (can't see the top of the stands on the far side), sits about 8500 or so (though I believe that's including future seating at that north end).  Cost about $20m including the teardown of the old structure.

Only thing I'd want to add is a roof - that stadium cleared out awfully fast when the cold October downpour hit at halftime.

Previous one that was condemned (those fenced-off upper bleachers were the "structurally unsafe" part)

The even-more-previous one (complete with soccer net!)

I sat on those structurally unsafe bleachers with singing and dancing classmates not long ago. Always got suspicious of the swaying... 

I've got a huge soft spot for Kingston, but I don't think it can support a team. Not that I take the Clippers folding as meaning much, amateur/pro-am attendance doesn't really correlate with pro attendance, but I just can't see the city supporting it well. I'd love to be wrong though. 

Unless you mean as an example of a good, cheapish stadium, then I agree, the new one was beautiful at HC. Though I imagine land costs would increase the figure if built elsewhere 

[Gopherbashi]

1 minute ago, Complete Homer said:

I sat on those structurally unsafe bleachers with singing and dancing classmates not long ago. Always got suspicious of the swaying... 

I've got a huge soft spot for Kingston, but I don't think it can support a team. Not that I take the Clippers folding as meaning much, amateur/pro-am attendance doesn't really correlate with pro attendance, but I just can't see the city supporting it well. I'd love to be wrong though. 

Unless you mean as an example of a good, cheapish stadium, then I agree, the new one was beautiful at HC. Though I imagine land costs would increase the figure if built elsewhere 

I'm 100% on-board with Kingston not being able to support a pro soccer team.  Wouldn't even dream of it - it's not even worth discussing.  It's here for the stadium aspects alone.

On the other hand, if the CPL tried to set up some kind of D2 farm league and OFFC needed a city in eastern Ontario...

[Macksam]

1 hour ago, grasshopper1917 said:

I think for many markets 10,000 (or smaller) would be more suitable. Here is a fairly simple one (about 9500) where the Estonia National Team plays. 

 

Nice looking stadium but I think you should build excess capacity to begin with. Even if you only draw 9 or 10 thousand a game to start you can still fill certain sections to make it look full and popping, and the team will eventually grow into it. Lille OSC only average 30000 in a 50000 seat stadium but you can never tell because the lights are off the upper deck and the side with the main broadcast camera sits pretty empty. It's probably more expensive to build a 10000 seat stadium and expand it later than build a 15000 seat one to begin with. Future NASL clubs like Atlanta, Chicago and San Diego are looking at building 15K stadiums and this league should be on the same level. Halifax want to start small with modular one but if things pick, they'll go for something like that as well for the permanent solution.

As for Toronto, you can't build something that screams second fiddle to TFC so that's why I like Euroborg but who knows what kind of ownership we're looking at.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Macksam

[Complete Homer]

8 minutes ago, Macksam said:

Nice looking stadium but I think you should build excess capacity to begin with. Even if you only draw 9 or 10 thousand a game to start you can still fill certain sections to make it look full and popping, and the team will eventually grow into it. Lille OSC only average 30000 in a 50000 seat stadium but you can never tell because the lights are off the upper deck and the side with the main broadcast camera sits pretty empty. It's probably more expensive to build a 10000 seat stadium and expand it later than build a 15000 seat one to begin with. Future NASL clubs like Atlanta, Chicago and San Diego are looking at building 15K stadiums and this league should be on the same level. Halifax want to start small with modular one but if things pick, they'll go for something like that as well for the permanent solution.

As for Toronto, you can't build something that screams second fiddle to TFC so that's why I like Euroborg but who knows what kind of ownership we're looking at.

Aside from the fact that I don't think anyone wants to sink 20k stadium type money into it, I think cavernous stadiums will do a lot of harm. Some teams will have to deal with it (CFL affiliated teams particularly), but small intimate 5000-10000 stadiums are my preference. I just want to see them be at least 3 sided

[Macksam]

1 minute ago, Complete Homer said:

Aside from the fact that I don't think anyone wants to sink 20k stadium type money into it, I think cavernous stadiums will do a lot of harm. Some teams will have to deal with it (CFL affiliated teams particularly), but small intimate 5000-10000 stadiums are my preference. I just want to see them be at least 3 sided

I agree I don't think we'll see a 20K right of the bat, but I don't think a 15K one would be cavernous, especially if it's filled by section. Unfortunately for us, both the U20 World Cup in 2007 and Women's World Cup in 2015 ended up being huge wasted opportunities to get some cities to build these.

[Levi Oakey]

2 hours ago, Gopherbashi said:

The covered area doesn't look too bad, but I think we'll need something better than concrete steps to sit on if we want this to fly on a professional level.

yeah, that's the standing section. Great for supporters. I would die for a nice standing section on KW United games. Makes it a very communal atmosphere.

[Ivanovski94]

Here are a couple stadiums that have a nice look and are sub-15'000 capacity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aker_Stadion

http://www.stadiumguide.com/alfheimstadion/

http://www.europlan-online.de/stadionul-zimbru/verein/5238

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

6 hours ago, Gopherbashi said:

Those appear to be permanent markings and there is no sign of soccer lines from what I can see, so I think that stadium is completely gone now from any serious consideration where pro level or international soccer is concerned.

Pro level soccer needs a significantly wider pitch than the gridiron field that is used for Canadian football, so a lot of the university stadiums that have been built with field turf over the last twenty years or so are simply not suitable for our sport beyond intramural rec sort of level.

[Gopherbashi]

7 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Those appear to be permanent markings and there is no sign of soccer lines from what I can see, so I think that stadium is completely gone now from any serious consideration where pro level or international soccer is concerned.

Pro level soccer needs a significantly wider pitch than the gridiron field that is used for Canadian football, so a lot of the university stadiums that have been built with field turf over the last twenty years or so are simply not suitable for our sport beyond intramural rec sort of level.

[MtlMario]

I  went to see a CMT game there many moons ago(can't remember year).

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Personally, I would be reluctant to pay to watch a soccer game played with a set of lines from another sport defacing the field of play and I suspect I am far from alone on that. It absolutely screams bush league. At least when the university stadiums had grass back in the original CSL era there were only soccer markings for part of the season and Canadian football markings when they were around were not as prominent as that. It's only when the fieldturf is unmarked as with the CFL stadia in Vancouver, Ottawa and Hamilton that sharing becomes a viable option although it's still less than ideal.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

2 minutes ago, MtlMario said:

I  went to see a CMT game there many moons ago(can't remember year).

Against Belize in early round World Cup qualifier probably.

[MtlMario]

4 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Against Belize in early round World Cup qualifier probably.

Could it have been in the 90's?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Did some googling and it was probably 2004:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/world-cup-qualifier-canada-belize-1.3216906

[Diamondium]

Here are some smaller stadiums which I quite like which I think would be good models to emulate if a team is looking to build.

Toyota Field - San Antonio - 8,000 Capacity

It's small, but it doesn't feel small. You see this stadium packed with people and it looks a lot bigger than it is, which helps with the major league feel at a price you wouldn't expect to break the bank.

 

Empire Field - Vancouver - 27,528 Capacity

I've seen this one talked about lots and that's because really it does fit the bill perfectly here. It's got a big enough capacity to last as long as you need and it's cheap. You could build something a bit more permanent under the same type of mold for a very reasonable price and it would work wonders for a team.

Avaya Stadium - San Jose - 18,000 Capacity

If a team is looking to actually spend a bit more, something along this vein looks like an excellent guideline. The luxury suites just a few rows up is likely a very profitable setup while also giving the stadium a unique look.

 

Fifth Third Bank Stadium - Kennesaw - 8,318 Capacity

Similar to the first. Has a 3-side wrap and a simple bowl format. Looks professional enough, while keeping room open for expansion.

 

Just some suggestions to throw out there. However they go, I am definitely a fan of a cheap bowl rather than the cheap bleachers feel. Adding something onto at least one of the ends just inherently makes it feel much bigger than it is.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Diamondium