Etihad Stadium redevelopment contractor faces race against time over new stand completion | OneFootball

Manchester City’s stadium redevelopment partners are facing a race against time to finish construction of a new North Stand that has been in the works since 2023 as the 2024-25 campaign comes to a close.

The Etihad Stadium has a capacity of 53,400 and the construction of a new North Stand originally began in 2023 to add a further 6,000 seats and make it the fourth largest stadium in the United Kingdom.

Officials at the Etihad Stadium have invested £300 million on a 401-room hotel as part of the redevelopment to grow Manchester City’s brand further and raise the stadium’s attraction as a tourist destination, inviting further investment from fans travelling from overseas.

Manchester City are approaching their final set of games for the current season as they take on Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final at Wembley on Saturday before completing their Premier League campaign against Bournemouth and Fulham.

Contractor John Sisk is spearheading the redevelopment project since 2023 and with the season coming to a close, Sisk’s team are facing a race against time to finish their project amidst ongoing challenges in construction.

“We’ve got a fairly tough few weeks ahead,” Sisk project director Ian Kasher told Construction News. “The old roof needs to be out in four weeks before the new one can be fully fitted, and then the cladding and floodlights will need to be added.

“The groundsmen need four weeks to relay the grass, so we only have six weeks on the pitch and then the groundsmen take over; there is a one-week buffer in case we have bad weather.”

Kasher added: “It has been complicated engineering. It has been challenging, as the whole of the roof around the stadium is held up by masts and cables. To build the North Stand we had to take out two of the big masts.

“We had to build a sufficient steel structure to transfer the roof onto the new structure, and then we had to demolish the masts from underneath.”

“The engineering that went into it was amazing,” said Sisk programme director Carl Brierley. “We found a Portuguese professor who was a specialist in cable tension.

“We flew him over and got him to examine it. He had a headset and hammer and was basically tapping the cables, looking at their frequency to understand what the tension was. It then gave us the alignment for the steel structure, which was 45mm plumb.”

With a handover deadline set for August 16, Manchester City meanwhile will shift their focus as soon as their Premier League and FA Cup campaigns immediately to the FIFA Club World Cup in the United States between June and July.

The redevelopment team are working to complete the project in the next six weeks to give groundsmen at the Etihad Stadium ample time to work on the new pitch as club officials shift their attention to matters behind the scenes to deal with incomings and outgoings.