City gets to work on Etihad Campus
MANCHESTER City is to start work on its £100m Etihad Campus training academy in east Manchester within weeks and says it will be ready in two years.
The 80-acre site close to the club’s stadium in east Manchester will include a 7,000-seat arena as well as player and youth accommodation.
The academy will cater for 400 players and there will also be a media centre and 16 football pitches. The club wants it ready for the 2014-15 season.
BAM was officially announced yesterday as City’s construction partner. It was up against Carillion, Laing O’Rourke and Bowmer & Kirkland for the job.
The work will create at least 160 construction jobs and a further 95 involved in duties such as administration, site security and landscaping.
The club’s new chief executive Ferran Soriano said: “Today is an extremely important day for the future of Manchester City Football Club.
“We are now in a position, after four years of research and planning, to execute that strategy and we are delighted to join with BAM who will play a large part in helping us to do so.”
BAM’s chief Executive Graham Cash said: “We are delighted to be part of the team that will deliver the City Football Academy and we will work hard to play our part in delivering MCFC’s vision of both developing the players of the future and helping to regenerate the community of East Manchester.”
Manchester City Council is leading a separate development adjacent to the site which is promising to deliver an Institute for Sports Medicine, a new 600-place sixth-form college and retail units.
City said the new academy “will reach the highest possible environmental standards”, with low carbon, low water and low waste measures being employed to minimise impact on the environment and encourage local bio-diversity. It also plans to plant 2,000 trees at the site.
