Builder picked for Selhurst Park revamp

Article posted by Coliseum, July 24^th, 2024

Image: Crystal Palace

Premier League club Crystal Palace has picked Lendlease to build the new main stand at Selhurst Park.

Building said the contractor has signed up for a Pre-Construction Service Agreement (PCSA) on the job which had an initial price tag of £100m but has now risen to closer to £150m.

The 25,456-capacity Selhurst Park Stadium is a football stadium in Selhurst in the London Borough of Croydon which is the home ground of Crystal Palace F.C. The stadium was designed by Archibald Leitch and opened in 1924.

The main stand development will overhaul Selhurst Park, transforming the matchday experience and providing new year-round community facilities.

Inspired by the club’s heritage, the design pays homage to the original Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill and will increase capacity to more than 34,000.

Building further stated that Lendlease is understood to have beaten McLaren, thought to have been the favourite, to the job.

Australian-owned Lendlease is currently in the process of selling its UK and US operations and intends to offload its portfolio of nearly a dozen development projects in London, Birmingham and Manchester.

It’s understood that Lendlease’s current status has not had an impact on the PCSA. Main construction work is expected to start next year and last for 30 months.

In an update on its website in the middle of last month, Palace told supporters that preliminary building work would be getting underway this summer.

The club said: “The construction of the new stand will look to be built around the existing structure, with the aim of keeping the stadium fully operational throughout the build.

“A development of this magnitude and complexity, particularly with the need to keep the existing stand open, requires reconfiguration of areas of the ground and careful chronological organisation of the process.

“We are finalising the detailed construction drawings and going out to tender for every detailed area, including steel, cladding, bricks and glass materials, whilst also building a computerised three-dimensional model of the stadium in order to visualise the interior spaces, design and movement of people through each general admission and hospitality area.”

The KSS-designed proposal to boost capacity at the ground from 26,000 to 34,000 was given the green light by Croydon council in 2022. Others working on the deal include cost consultant Core 5 and structural engineer Mott MacDonald.

The update said the club was completing various agreements, including buying a plot of land from Sainsbury’s and half a dozen homes in a street next to the stadium, ahead of main construction starting.

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