Feyenoord stadium along with city masterplan gets green light from Rotterdam council

A large-scale masterplan for Feyenoord, a suburb-city of the Dutch city of Rotterdam, has been approved by Rotterdam City Council.

The successful concept design from OMA, led by Partner David Gianotten, incorporates a historically-important football stadium – for the nationally significant Feyenoord football club – which no longer fulfills modern demands.

Aligned with the football club’s expanding ambitions both in the Dutch and European football leagues, this proposal is the latest in a string of plans to expand, but the only one to have been accepted.

A new 63,000-seat stadium will function as a catalyst for the urban development of Rotterdam Zuid (South) – “one of the neighborhoods of the city in need of rejuvenation and economic injection,” according to the architects.

In addition to the stadium, the proposal means to renovate the existing stadium of De Kuip and develop an Urban Bridge, the ‘Strip’ (a three-dimensional pedestrian walkway connecting the old stadium with the new stadium), and the Kuip Park. The former will be renovated and redeveloped into apartments, commercial space, an athletics sports center and a public square.

All in all, the scheme proposes 180,000sqm of housing, 64,000sqm of commercial space, and 83,000sqm of public program including a ‘sports experience centre’ and sports fields.

Work on the project will begin shortly with the stadium, which will be the biggest in the Netherlands, set to be completed by 2022.

Rotterdam municipality have pledged €135 million to the project, which means they now own 40 million shares and the ground that the stadium will be built on. That will be made available on payment of the lease. €35 million has been pledged for new roads and bridges around the new stadium.

According to OMA, the project will proceed with the detailed design of the masterplan and the design development of the first phase, which includes the new stadium, four residential towers, a hotel and the development of the Northern part of the ‘Strip’.

Work is set to begin in 2019. It is set to cost in total €365 million to construct the ground and surrounding area. The new stadium is slated to open for the football season of 2022 to 2023.

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