What did the riverside stadium cost to build?

Anton_Berg said:
Incredible bargain, timing the slump in construction perfectly. Now, how much did it cost to fill in the corners?
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In 1998 – when Middlesbrough were promoted back to the Premier League at the first attempt – the capacity was increased by 5,000 by filling in the north and south-west corners at a cost of £5 million. This expansion gave the stadium a 35,100 capacity.
 
rob_fmttm said:
Are you getting mixed up with the original contractors having to be replaced rather than the steel being reused from elsewhere?
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No, I don't think so Rob. I was working in heavy industry at the time and was upset with our choice of using German steel when we had one of the best steel industries on our doorstep. One of the excuses they gave was that the steel had been pre-fabricated for another stadium. How true this is, I don’t know and might have been a rumour out out by the unions to keep the peace.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
No, I don't think so Rob. I was working in heavy industry at the time and was upset with our choice of using German steel when we had one of the best steel industries on our doorstep. One of the excuses they gave was that the steel had been pre-fabricated for another stadium. How true this is, I don’t know and might have been a rumour out out by the unions to keep the peace.
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I think that the Teesside park/Stockton Racecourse site was considered
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
I think that the Teesside park/Stockton Racecourse site was considered
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Several sites were considered. Teesside Park and a triangle near Newport Bridge and of course staying put.
Remember this was a couple of years before the NHS Trust announced plans to leave the General Hospital site, that might have made a difference.
I interviewed Keith Lamb once in his office at Ayresome Park. We walked outside and he showed me the corrosion in the North Stand girders. The old 1903 stand was in terrible trouble. The cost of replacing it might have been a big slice of the £16m total for the Riverside.
We then went into his office and we started the interview. He then took a phone call and asked me to switch my recorder off. I would later realise this would happen every time I spoke to Keith Lamb. (Once he took a call from Bryan Robson who was in an airport lounge flying to South America, in which the two talked about two different striker targets. A week later we signed Marco Branca and Hamilton Ricard and also Alun Armstrong).
Anyway, in this call, I heard the caller say "contaminated land." And they started to talk about a new stadium site.
Anyway, as said, Teesside Park and Newport triangle both had major issues with access. Middlehaven was very much a blank canvas once the scrap yard and storage depot was removed. Teesside Park would mean match traffic fighting with retail customers on to the A66. It would have been like Christmas rush hour every game. A nightmare. Newport was really hemmed in on all sides and much further from the train station and the bus station and town centre car parks. Really hard to get to and get away from.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Several sites were considered. Teesside Park and a triangle near Newport Bridge and of course staying put.
Remember this was a couple of years before the NHS Trust announced plans to leave the General Hospital site, that might have made a difference.
I interviewed Keith Lamb once in his office at Ayresome Park. We walked outside and he showed me the corrosion in the North Stand girders. The old 1903 stand was in terrible trouble. The cost of replacing it might have been a big slice of the £16m total for the Riverside.
We then went into his office and we started the interview. He then took a phone call and asked me to switch my recorder off. I would later realise this would happen every time I spoke to Keith Lamb. (Once he took a call from Bryan Robson who was in an airport lounge flying to South America, in which the two talked about two different striker targets. A week later we signed Marco Branca and Hamilton Ricard and also Alun Armstrong).
Anyway, in this call, I heard the caller say "contaminated land." And they started to talk about a new stadium site.
Anyway, as said, Teesside Park and Newport triangle both had major issues with access. Middlehaven was very much a blank canvas once the scrap yard and storage depot was removed. Teesside Park would mean match traffic fighting with retail customers on to the A66. It would have been like Christmas rush hour every game. A nightmare. Newport was really hemmed in on all sides and much further from the train station and the bus station and town centre car parks. Really hard to get to and get away from.
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Interesting. There would have needed to be new access to the Teesside Park site from the A19.
I was doing some work for TDC at the time and remember hearing snippets of info.

Rob - can you remember if TDC were involved in all of this??
 
I remember Steve Gibson saying he thought Ayresome park was a tidy little ground an he thought about developing it, he then visited another ground (can't remember which one but notts county springs to mind for some reason) and saw what could be done,he then realised he had to move and start from scratch. Erimus might have it in his scrap book.⚽
 
Ex pfc wintergreen said:
I remember Steve Gibson saying he thought Ayresome park was a tidy little ground an he thought about developing it, he then visited another ground (can't remember which one but notts county springs to mind for some reason) and saw what could be done,he then realised he had to move and start from scratch. Erimus might have it in his scrap book.⚽
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Steve Gibson wrote, he sat in his seat in the directors area one cold tuesday night at home to Charlton & looked around at the sparse, rundown Ayresome Park, with its empty terracing, dwindling attendances & the ground in need of repair & decided there & then something needed to be done & the 1st seeds of a new stadium were born that night

He then started to visit different grounds & it just took off
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Interesting. There would have needed to be new access to the Teesside Park site from the A19.
I was doing some work for TDC at the time and remember hearing snippets of info.

Rob - can you remember if TDC were involved in all of this??
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I don't recall TDC being mentioned during the interview but the club knew I was a traditionalist and didn't want to leave Ayresome. So they showed me this window they had made through the brickwork to show the terrible state of the North Stand superstructure. Then during the interview a long confidential phone call was taken about a new location for a ground on contaminated land. I don't think I would have known the future Riverside location if they had mentioned it. It wasn't really a location was it before the stadium. just industrial land near the dock and river.
There were obviously discussions going on with TDC, Cleveland County and Middlesbrough Council.
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Interesting. There would have needed to be new access to the Teesside Park site from the A19.
I was doing some work for TDC at the time and remember hearing snippets of info.

Rob - can you remember if TDC were involved in all of this??
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I thought that Teesside Park was more ruled out as they had built Teesside Park on it? Wasn't it more under consideration when it was the racecourse?
 
I remember when we realised the steel was fabricated in Germany I was totally confounded as to how we couldn't of gotten it any cheaper rom Lackenby half a mile away .
 
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