Zaragoza venue plans – light at end of tunnel

Article posted by Coliseum, February 13^th, 2023

Image: Estadio La Romareda, Pablopirineos, Public Domain

The Segunda División club Real Zaragoza (Spain) gathering-dust-venue-construction plans is set to get rolling again with the Zaragoza City Council ready to accept the ‘surface rights’ condition put forward by the club.

Zaragoza wants to build a new venue in the City of Zaragoza in Spain on the site where their present home ground stands – the Estadio La Romareda in Zaragoza, Spain. But the club’s ordeal over the years on building a new home arena never seems to end. However, hope seems to be floating with the above development.

‘HERALDO’ stated that the General Urban Ordinance Plan (PGOU) clause related to the Real Zaragoza home – the Estadio La Romareda – got mired in controversy for which the whole venue construction project plans were put on the back burner.

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Real Zaragoza, S.A.D., commonly referred to as Zaragoza, is a football club based in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, that currently competes in the Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league system. Zaragoza holds its home games at the La Romareda.

The Estadio La Romareda is the home stadium of Real Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain. It was inaugurated on September 8^th, 1957. The official capacity of the venue is 33,608, with an average attendance of around 20,000 for Real Zaragoza matches.

The General Urban Ordinance Plan (PGOU) is the urban plans produced by Municipalities in Spain and agreed to by the various regional Governments. There are strict national guidelines in place for these town plans.

‘HERALDO’ further stated that the Mayor of Zaragoza, Jorge Azcón, confirmed at an event held in Las Fuentes (Spain) recently that the Zaragoza City Council is willing to accept the condition put forth by Zaragoza – the club wants a concession model for surface rights up to 75 years.

In Spain, surface rights, like common law, separates land ownership from the right over the construction. The right entitles its owner to build on third parties’ land, taking ownership of what has been built for a certain period (which may not exceed 99 years).

Interactions with the public on the venue project will be held soon which will be followed by the feasibility report exercise and a final decision will be taken whether to allow concession model for surface rights up to 75 years or less than that. The futuristic features that the new arena will come armed with will also be discussed.

The Zaragoza City Council decided to agree to the above condition put forward by Real Zaragoza following a study conducted by the University of Zaragoza which arrived at the conclusion that if the investors are to pencil out, concession rights of up to 75 years will have to be allowed.

Real Zaragoza wants that the land on which their new home venue will sit will have to change its classification – from a general public system to a general private system. Only then will the surface rights concession be possible.

The price tag of the planned stadium stands between 120 and 140 million euros and the IDOM architects’ team will be led by César Azcárate.

Bilbao (Spain)-based IDOM is a multinational corporation which provides consulting, engineering, and architecture services in Spain and internationally.

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