On January 5th, the authorities of RC Strasbourg announced the winning design for the revamp of Stade de la Meinau. The Populous concept was chosen, the most important goal is to increase the capacity of the stadium to 32,000 seats.

All from public funds

The British who have in their portfolio Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Emirates Stadium designs beat four other architectural companies in the final stage of the selection process. The concept assumes increasing the venue's capacity from current 26,000 seats to 32,000. According to plan, works should begin in June 2022, and the facility should be commissioned in July 2025.

© Populous / Strasbourg

The total cost of the reconstruction is € 100 million. This is quite a lot if we consider that recently SC Montpellier announced the construction of a new stadium from scratch with a capacity of 25,000 for € 180 million.

The investment will be financed entirely from public funds as follows:

• Eurometropolis (owner of the stadium) - € 50 million,
• Grand Est region - € 25 million,
• City of Strasbourg - € 12.5 million,
• European Alsace Collective - € 12.5 million.

RC Strasbourg intends to expand the training centre from its own funds. The club will spend € 10 million on the first team training centre and € 21 million on the academy.

© Populous / Strasbourg

We already know what and when will be done

At the press conference, the club's authorities and representatives of Populous announced the modernization work schedule, the timeframe of which is June 2022 - July 2025. These are the details:

• Phase 1A - from June 2022 to May 2023 - construction of the back-up building behind the south stand (main stand). Adding a second tier to the south stand, as well as increasing the number of VIP seats from 1,400 to 3,600. The works will have a very limited impact on the capacity of the facility, which will then drop to 24,141.
• Phase 1B - from June 2023 to December 2023 - roofing of the newly built main stand. A six-month period in which capacity will be reduced to 19,046 seats (lowest in the entire construction period).
• Phase 2 - from January 2024 to July 2024 - works on the West Stand and the fan zone. The capacity will be 23,058 during this period. This stand is to be intended for fans who prefer to watch the match standing.
• Phase 3 - from July 2024 to December 2024 - works on the North Stand. The capacity will be 24,021 during this period.
• Phase 4 - from January 2025 to June 2025 - works on the East Stand. The capacity during this period is to be 24 134 seats.

Completion of the revamp of the stadium in July 2025 with the target capacity of 32,000 seats.

It is known that the venue will house a museum as well as a brewery. Perhaps most interestingly, fragments of the Airbus A340 fuselage will be used as a "sunscreen" on the south facade! Cut and rejoined into verticular blinds, they're expected to cover 4,400 square meters and come as an interesting attempt at circular economy.

In addition, the facility will generate electricity from nearly 1,000 square metres of solar panels. RC Strasbourg plans to allocate € 7-8 million from its own resources to the modernization of the museum, shops, offices and ticket sales points.

Author: Tomasz Sobura