Birmingham City unveil new stadium plans with 62,000-seater stadium that will be seen as ‘beacon for excellence’.
‘A modern-day Colosseum’: Birmingham City unveil 62,000-capacity stadium plans.
Designs for Birmingham City’s impressive new stadium, the 62,000-seat Birmingham City Powerhouse, which the Championship team says will open for the 2030–31 season, have been revealed.
The stadium will dominate the Birmingham skyline and be visible up to 40 miles away. Its 12 chimney-like towers are inspired by the city’s industrial past. With views over the entire city, one tower will have a lift to Birmingham’s tallest bar.
The Birmingham chair, Tom Wagner, promised a “modern-day Colosseum” and “to create something unique and distinctive in one of this country’s greatest and sometimes overlooked regions … it will be overlooked no more. Together, we’re putting this city and our club on a trajectory towards greatness.”
The stadium will have a movable pitch for NFL, rugby, and concert use, as well as a roof that can retract in 20 minutes. Wagner’s £3 billion investment on a 60-acre property less than a mile from their existing St Andrew’s ground is at the heart of their vision for a sports district in the city.
“We’re spending a lot of time and money on a stadium that will never be built,” quipped Wagner, alluding to doubters, at the launch of the stadium designs in Digbeth on Thursday.
The academy’s graduate Jude Bellingham, minority stakeholder and former NFL player Tom Brady, and actor Paul Anderson, who portrayed Arthur Shelby in the city-set television show Peaky Blinders, were all featured in a promotional video for the Powerhouse that Birmingham had created.
“We’re going to change this city for ever,” Wagner said. “This will be a sports stadium and music venue that will claim the sky to claim the city.”