J
Jack Griffin
Guest
Here we go again, no, Tesco did not pay directly, they bought the land at an agreed premium on the original purchase price.
The decontamination & build projects were not awarded by Tesco.
Actual spend by club or council very little then.
Here we go again, no, Tesco did not pay directly, they bought the land at an agreed premium on the original purchase price.
The decontamination & build projects were not awarded by Tesco.
In October 2003 CCC approved the Coventry Arena project. The budget was set as £113.3m and achieved practicle completion on 19th August 2005 with an overspend of 2.9m. As I said before our club never owned the land. They never paid for the decontamination. They never started the project. It never got past the stage of showing us pictures. Does this sound familiar?
The main aim of the project was to regenerate the former gasworks site to provide a multi-use arena providing employment and leisure opportunities for people from the city. There had been many attempts to do something with the old gasworks site over the 30 years it was left as a derelict eyesore, but nothing ever happened because of the funding needed. The regeneration of the area attracted 9.2m of grants and CCC put 10m of their own money in. Out of the original 75 acres there are still approx 14 acres to be developed. So nearly 20% of valuable land from the old gasworks are still available. This was valued at approx 5m in 2006 so the value of it now will be a fair bit more. The aim was to create 2,900 jobs. After 12 months 2,600 jobs had been created, and this was before the casino had opened.
So as you can see there were reasons for CCC to continue. It wasn't just for our football club. And yes our football club was absolutely fucked by this time. CCC could have just developed the land and made a lot of money out of it. But we got the arena built. It was never going to be a freebie. Nearly 56m of funding was required on top of what Tescos paid. And as I said previously our club paid £1,758,000 for which they got a 50% share of ACL. An outstanding loan of 21m was needed. This was paid for by the leasehold taken out by ACL.
Any more questions Lord? Just check the link I put up earlier. It is a government document so will be the most accurate list of the build you will find.
why did Tesco submit the planning app for the Arena?Here we go again, no, Tesco did not pay directly, they bought the land at an agreed premium on the original purchase price.
The decontamination & build projects were not awarded by Tesco.
To be fair, the articles from 1999, all seemed to be saying that "work will start in the next few weeks/months" on decontamination, obviously never started at all.
Forgot about this article by Neville Hadsley from WSC about the whole fiasco, probably worth a thread on it's own to be fair.
http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/906-Grounds/2312-ambitious-expansions
why did Tesco submit the planning app for the Arena?
Why did the Arena cost £113m? Equivalent stadia cost less than half of that.
By the time I arrived in Coventry the deal had been struck; in simple terms it was going to be a joint venture between the football club and the council with both parties owning 50 per cent of the equity.
As the football club did not have the money to complete the purchase of the land, which would then enable them to sell off half of it to Tesco, it was agreed that Coventry City Council would purchase the land, then conclude the deal with Tesco, all as part of their joint venture agreement.
But mysteriously, once the purchase of the land and the sale to Tesco had been completed, Coventry City Council informed the football club that they were unable to share with them the profit from the sale of the land due to ‘state aid’ implications.
Instead, they offered Coventry City FC a 50 per cent share in the company that would operate the Ricoh Arena, but they, Coventry City Council would own all the equity in the property.
What I have explained in one paragraph took over 12 months to sort out and over £1m was spent on lawyers’ fees as the state aid fiasco continued through to a conclusion, which involved numerous highly paid lawyers As compensation the council offered Coventry City Football Club 50 per cent of the operating profit from the Ricoh Arena and the business plan forecasts were looking very favourable.
I've posted a link to it before. Tesco's logo was all over the architects drawings for the Arena. I believe they submitted the plans and master planned the whole area.They didn't. They paid for the land and decontamination of it. This had to be done before they could build their own property. CCC did everything to do with the stadium.
It was said to be their most expensive site outside London IIRC.
Do other stadia not have infrastructure costs then? The decontamination was a few million. I am of the view that £113m is the entire build cost for the Arena and Tesco tbh.115m. It wasn't just for the build. It included the cost of the land and decontamination as well as infrastructure and more. Take a look at the link I posted. It explains it all including where they tried to get the train station built.
Do other stadia not have infrastructure costs then? The decontamination was a few million. I am of the view that £113m is the entire build cost for the Arena and Tesco tbh.
I might do that actually. I might also ask how much they paid for the land from British Gas.Well send a FOI to CCC to ask that question.
I might do that actually. I might also ask how much they paid for the land from British Gas.
Land acquisition...................................................................£24,099,000
Decomination and infrastructure (expenditure in kind).....................£17,000,000
Site Profiling..........................................................................£1,975,000
Total Land Related................................................................£43,074,000
The link lordsummerisle posted above by says it was purchased from a German Construction Company.. but then there is an article by Bryan Richardson I read yesterday where he states "We bought 88 acres from British Gas"... I'm suspecting the original construction company put up some cash to by the land from BG and owned it for while, then pulled out.. strewth knows, there is always another twist.
I'm sure that Richardson made quite a few quid out of the land somehow.
The link lordsummerisle posted above by says it was purchased from a German Construction Company.. but then there is an article by Bryan Richardson I read yesterday where he states "We bought 88 acres from British Gas"... I'm suspecting the original construction company put up some cash to by the land from BG and owned it for while, then pulled out.. strewth knows, there is always another twist.
The land purchase cost for CCC is a matter of public record..
I thought that the construction company was supposed to be Birse and they threw in the towel when having built the crisp bowl for Leicester, the East Midlands club ran into financial difficulties and couldn't pay for it all. Sure I read somewhere that they said they wouldn't touch football club stadia after the hit they took from Leicester.
any news on this yet ?
Seems the diversion tactic from the back to the Ricoh saga has worked I see.
Makes me mad. Wasn't this meant to be paid and if it hasn't why hasn't it? Us fans deserve to know some truth please
we should run a poll
What do you think will happen 1st
1) the opening of our new stadium
2) the liquidation process to be completed by Appleton
From what I understand, £590,000 is sitting in an escrow account awaiting the final figure from the liquidator. Apparently it is the liquidator's figure that is key to what the final amount will be and there is still some work being done to finalise that. I don't think that there's anything to worry about re: points deductions etc. it's just a case of waiting for the liquidator.
A call to Appleton's people might get some detail on the liquidation and timescales.
From what I understand, £590,000 is sitting in an escrow account awaiting the final figure from the liquidator. Apparently it is the liquidator's figure that is key to what the final amount will be and there is still some work being done to finalise that. I don't think that there's anything to worry about re: points deductions etc. it's just a case of waiting for the liquidator.
A call to Appleton's people might get some detail on the liquidation and timescales.
Shouldn't really matter though should it? SISU/Avro/Otium/Joy/Whoever were given a date to pay up. If there's a dealy, thats their problem not the FL's. Threaten them with revocking the golden share, Appleton will conclude business the following day.
Good job SISU don't owe the money to Wonga. It would be one shady law firm Vs a non-existant one.
A have already recovered some of the money. It must be clarified what is the correct amount to pay.
590k is the correct amount to pay. But SISU would prefer to waste 1m so they don't have to pay ACL anything if they can find a loophole. They even tried to make out that 500k had been paid from elsewhere when we all know it was 300k.
Or did the FL say that they must pay 590k but if anything was paid by anybody with nothing to do with SISU and nothing to do with the 590k settlement that they could do a reduced payment?
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