In April it was 245 million, by June already 272m, then 285m and now the only offer filed in repeated tender is worth 364 million. It's hard to imagine that it was thought to be a 50-million project back in 2013.

Back in June we informed you that tender had been launched for Szczecin's new 20,000-seat stadium and adjacent training centre. At that point it was officially anticipated to cost PLN 272 million, already an increase from 245 million suggested a couple months earlier. But within weeks of announcement the amount was increased to 285 million as fears of serious underestimation became realistic.

As of now 285 million (€66.5 million) is still the official municipal estimate but a lot has happened since then. The first tender had to be cancelled in late September after all bids massively exceeded expectations, being priced from 388 to a stunning 549 million!

Within just two weeks the city launched a second tender, this time for a scaled down project. The stadium design has grown to 21,000 seats because a 2-level pavilion was removed from the east stand to cut costs. Numerous other alterations were made, including a smaller black mesh facade, fewer and cheaper materials, no grandstand at primary training field and other changes.

The second tender failed to deliver a much-anticipated breakthrough as only one company, Doraco, filed a bid at all. That bid came just 24 million lower than their initial bid, falling from 388 to 364 million.

As of now the city of Szczecin is analysing the filed bid. If there are no irregularities, the city has two options: look for additional funds and approve it (despite the 79 million gap) or cancel for the second time and take a much more serious look at viability of the entire scheme.

The construction market in Poland has seen fast increase in prices in recent months and unstable near future (fluctuating labour market) surely have added to the high pricing of all bids in both tenders. However, it also seems the project has been hugely underestimated by the municipality.

We should note that Szczecin has been experiencing major issues regarding the stadium redevelopment project ever since efforts began in 2013. Back then it was expected that as little as PLN 50 million would allow to cover all of the stadium and deliver one new grandstand. Since then almost everything has changed, after justified public pressure to make the stadium football-specific.

Now all 4 stands would be built from scratch and the training academy was added in order to secure external funds from the sports ministry. Currently Szczecin has 30 million pledged by the ministry and is applying for 80, however that bid seems very unlikely to succeed.