The Queens Park Rangers want to build a new stadium but stay in their neighborhood. Not a simple project, as Alan Sendorek, Head of Strategy QPR Property, revealed in an exclusive interview with Stadionwelt.
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| Alan Sendorek |
Stadiaworld: Why is it necessary for QPR to build a new stadium? Is it impossible to rebuild the stadium at the current site?
Alan Sendorek: We love Loftus Road but its size and age creates a serious problem for us. It is the third smallest ground in the Championship with a capacity of around 18,000 and very limited nonmatchday use as there just isn’t the space. It is no longer viable for a club to use a stadium for matches 25 days a year and have it sitting empty for the other 340. Our site is tiny, just 4.5 acres, and is surrounded by housing on three sides and a main road on the other, so unfortunately it is not possible to expand on site.
Stadiaworld: Can you tell us more about the plans at the Linford Christie Stadium?
Sendorek: The plans are still at an early stage, and the site is owned by the council so we are very much in their hands. The Linford Christie Stadium is a run down athletics stadium, which is home to Thames Valley Harriers. (TVH is Linford Christie’s old club and he trained there when he grew up in Shepherds Bush in the 1970s. When he won the Olympics in 1992 they named it after him.) The council can’t afford to run it, which is why it is in the condition it is in. The idea is for us to partner with Thames Valley Harriers to create a new community athletics facility and, adjacent to it, a 30,000 seater football stadium for QPR. The site is about four times the size of Loftus Road so there is plenty of room to fit both things in. There is the potential for a really exciting innovative community sports hub with a professional football club at its heart.
Stadiaworld: Which advantages will entail a new stadium for the club?
Sendorek: Whilst we remain at Loftus Road, unable to generate enough revenue to compete with our rivals, the club is not financially sustainable. Getting a new stadium at the Linford Christie site would secure our future in Hammersmith & Fulham, which is where we have been for a hundred years and where we want to stay. Clubs like Brighton have shown how a new community stadium can support a club’s ambitions, with bigger crowds and nonmatchday use generating income to improve the team on the pitch. There is also a huge opportunity to increase the club’s reach in the community, which is very important for QPR fans, and is also an important part of our long term sustainability.
Stadiaworld: Which non-matchday use should the new stadium provide?
Sendorek: It is difficult to say at this early stage but there are any number of corporate and community uses that can take place in a stadium. We’ve had all sorts of ideas from the various community meetings we have held with local groups, from an ecology centre for local schoolchildren to encourage them to visit the large park next to the site, called Wormwood Scrubs, to a base for the local police safer neighbourhood team. We have a partnership with the country’s leading youth employability charity, the Prince’s Trust, and we hope that we could accommodate more of their staff, as well as other charities, on site too. The aim is that the stadium becomes a hub for the community and helps regenerate the local area by providing jobs and activities for people.
Stadiaworld: How important is staying in W12 for the club? Wouldn’t it be easier (and cheaper) to move out of Hammersmith & Fulham?
Sendorek: The aim of the project is to stay in W12, which is where we have been since 1917. It might well be easier to move further west, and there have been previous ownerships of the club who have wanted to do that. But we are a W12 club and we want to stay that way. If the Linford Christie site, which is probably our last chance to stay in W12, doesn’t come off then we will have a very difficult decision to make but realistically we are unlikely to remain in Hammersmith & Fulham in the long term.
Stadiaworld: Is the area at Linford Christie Stadium your last chance to build a stadium in Hammersmith & Fulham?
Sendorek: It looks like it. There have been a lot of regeneration sites that have come up in the local area over recent years, but land values in London mean there is usually something more valuable to develop there like the luxury housing at the old BBC development. You only have to look at a map of the borough to see there are no other ten acre sites available, so Linford Christie really looks like our last chance.
Stadiaworld: When will be decided whether you can start planning on a new stadium on the strived area?
Sendorek: The council have said publicly that they are exploring options for the future of the Linford Christie site and will put those to the relevant committee by the end of the year. So we hope to see some progress soon.
Stadiaworld: How do you want to finance the new stadium? How much shall it cost?
Sendorek: It is too early to know how much it would cost or how any deal would be structured, but we have some property interests in the area, which we have begun developing, for example a 600 home development called Oaklands about a mile away from Loftus Road, being developed in partnership with Notting Hill Genesis. The council has earmarked Loftus Road for residential development should the club move so it is likely that would also pay a significant amount towards the cost of a new stadium.
Stadiaworld: Did you already contact architects? Who will operate the stadium?
Sendorek: We aren’t yet at the stage of hiring architects as we want to get more certainty about a site before doing so.
Stadiaworld: Are you planning to sell the naming rights?
Sendorek: Again, it is far too early, but very few stadiums in the Championship have naming rights these days. If anything, it is something that is becoming less common not more.
Stadiaworld: As almost every other club in London redevelops its stadium, do you fear to lose fans and customers to other clubs with modern facilities if you don’t build a new one as well?
Sendorek: We are competing not just with other clubs but with other forms of entertainment. Our CEO Lee Hoos is very into data and we have a lot of data showing that first time fans rarely return to Loftus Road. We did a survey to look into that and found that for most people the stadium itself is the main problem, with very tight concourses, cramped seating, lots of restricted views and terrible accessibility for disabled fans all mentioned as reasons that put them off. A family day out to the football is not cheap and these days it comes with certain minimum expectations like a decent seat with an unrestricted view and concourses that aren’t claustrophobic. Unfortunately, we just can’t offer that at Loftus Road. Brentford is one of the closest teams to us and they are currently building a brand new stadium four miles away. I’m not expecting QPR fans to start going to Brentford, but it will certainly enable Brentford to attract more potential fans, which will help them to compete against us in future. (Stadiaworld, 06.12.2018)
