LONDON - Craven Cottage (30,000)

[Leedsrule]

Yeah you've shown us that before but I'm not sure what that actually tells us? What stands will and can they redevelop? Clearly they found that the riverside stand has many advantages, but what next?

[GunnerJacket]

If taken at face value, it basically suggests the end stands won't be able to get much larger regarding capacity. It suggests their building footprints are built out and that adding new seats would likely require changes in legroom and angle of the seating, so as to decrease the quality of the view and seats for patrons.

Edit: My guess is that the bottom line is Craven Cottage will be "built out" once this current expansion is completed. While they could realistically add another 3-6k without greatly impacting the visitor experience, the costs to do so would seem unreasonable. The only way they'll be able to do anything substantial would require redoing the listed main stand, and even then it may not be worth it or feasible from a access/egress stand point.

If Fulham ever feel that 30k is too restricting for them then they'll face the dilemma of moving away from the Cottage.

[Monks]

Originally Posted by GunnerJacket

If taken at face value, it basically suggests the end stands won't be able to get much larger regarding capacity. It suggests their building footprints are built out and that adding new seats would likely require changes in legroom and angle of the seating, so as to decrease the quality of the view and seats for patrons.

Edit: My guess is that the bottom line is Craven Cottage will be "built out" once this current expansion is completed. While they could realistically add another 3-6k without greatly impacting the visitor experience, the costs to do so would seem unreasonable. The only way they'll be able to do anything substantial would require redoing the listed main stand, and even then it may not be worth it or feasible from a access/egress stand point.

If Fulham ever feel that 30k is too restricting for them then they'll face the dilemma of moving away from the Cottage.

So long as the Cottage Pavilion and the listed facade were preserved, I reckon something like the main stand at Estadio Corona would be both distinctive and sensible if FFC had no other choices for future expansion:

[RMB2007]

There's loads of wooden seats in the current Johnny Haynes Stand, and they're smaller than the modern plastic seats. Any new structure would be required to meet the latest rules and regs, so you wouldn't gain that much extra capacity on that one side, nor could you build an even taller stand than the previous plan because of the houses behind.

In saying that, I can see them being allowed to expand the stadium by an extra 1000-2000, but beyond that they'd probably need to use some land from Bishop's Park, which I can't honestly see happening due to the park being listed. Not to mention the fight they'd have with English Heritage and local people opposing it.

Outline of the old plan in red:

[RMB2007]

Option 1a is what KSS opted for, but here's the other roof truss options they considered during the design phase:

[George Costanza]

oh I do like the cantelevered truss iteration!!...but the chosen design is very smart