Case: The City of Manchester Stadium

The stadium used by Manchester City football club was originallydesigned to be the central arena for the Manchester bid to host the1996 Olympics. When the games were awarded to Atlanta, the City ofManchester refocused their efforts on the Commonwealth Games bidfor 2002, which they won. The stadium was originally planned as an80,000-seat arena for the Olympics. This was revised down to a60,000-capacity stadium for the Commonwealth games. However, theCouncil’s main concern was that the stadium should have asustainable future, so the plan was revised down again toaccommodate a future for the stadium as the new ground forManchester City football club to replace their Main Road Stadium inMoss Side. The revised plan meant that the capacity for the Gamesin 2002 was 38,000 which then rose to 48,000 in 2003 when it washanded over to Manchester City football club. Construction of thestadium took 3,000 workers just over 2 years to complete and washanded over to the organizers four months ahead of the games. TheCommonwealth Games was a spectacular success both for Britishathletes and the City of Manchester. However, there was nosentiment shown when the bulldozers moved in just hours after theclosing ceremony. The track was removed, a third tier of seatingwas added, and the central pitch was lowered. The conversion costsof £30 million were met by the football club. This plan was notwithout criticism, as there were many calls by leading athletes fora large athletics stadium to be kept. However, the stadium fromboth Sydney and Atlanta Olympics became rugby and baseball groundsrespectively. The Manchester Stadium has also been used as aconcert venue and has a capacity for 60,000 fans, one of Europe’slargest open air concert venues. In 2010, an application wasgranted to expand the capacity to 60,000 for football fans. In 2002the Manchester Commonwealth stadium had two tiers of seating, butafter the stadium’s conversion to a football ground, it had threetiers of seating. There are 2,000 parking spaces at the stadiumitself with a further 8,000 spaces provided locally, there are 2train stations within a half hour walk of the ground and forconcerts and special events a bus service is set up. The stadium isused twice weekly during the football season, hosts conferences,major sporting events and even weddings.

Questions

1. How has long-term planning affected the final result of theCity of Manchester stadium?

2. What was the design capacity of the City of Manchesterstadium?

3. What was the effective capacity of the City of Manchesterstadium?

4. Why was the original capacity for the Commonwealth Gamesstadium reduced from 60,000 to 38,000?