TYNECASTLE STADIUM UPGRADE POTENTIAL - UEFA category 4 granted ( updated/merged )

[Hackney Hearts]

14 hours ago, trotter said:

Simply looking at the population numbers and omitting every other variable, you have a student population of what, say 500? (I don't know how much it holds) who will be there, call it 45 weeks of the year, that gives you 7,560 hours. Assuming they are at uni for 8 hours a day (again assuming 7 days a week just to make the maths simple) that leaves 500 people at risk for 4,989 hours per year. If we define the worst case of a massive explosion that will kill everyone 500 x 4,989 = 2,494,800 per year. Doing an equivalent equation for Tynecastle as it sits is 20,000 people for, say 3 hours, for 38 games a season (half of one and half of another) 38 x 3 x 20,000 = 2,280,000 per year. 

 

Naïve as it may sound, it always strikes me that rather than doing complicated sums to work out how many people would get killed in certain scenarios, it might be better to ban these sort of dangers from residential areas full stop. This applies even more so to MacFarlan Smith, by the sound of it.

[chrisyboy7]

2 hours ago, Hackney Hearts said:

 

Naïve as it may sound, it always strikes me that rather than doing complicated sums to work out how many people would get killed in certain scenarios, it might be better to ban these sort of dangers from residential areas full stop. This applies even more so to MacFarlan Smith, by the sound of it.

It seems like complete madness that we could be held back because of this....

[FarmerTweedy]

On 13/11/2021 at 18:47, PortyBeach said:

I believe so, yes. He had some land on the west side of the city he was prepared to sell Mercer. Not sure what happened there. There were obviously some stumbling blocks, but what the issues were, I’ve no idea.

The main issue was that Murray actually wanted to build a massive housing development on the green belt near Hermiston/Gogar.  A new stadium for Hearts, along with a smattering of other leisure/sports facilities, was an (unsuccessful) attempt by Murray to get the planners to relent on their (at the time) hardline opposition to any housing developments on the green belt.  

[FarmerTweedy]

On 14/11/2021 at 07:54, Debut 4 said:

You probably know but there’s been a couple of other instances where we could’ve been playing elsewhere.  In the 30s(maybe the 20s?) a move to a huge stadium in Sighthill was spoke of but fell through. 
 

Then, my Dad told me we played a trial match at Murrayfield years after to see if the club fancied a move there. 
 

 

Mid-to-late 1930s I believe.  A bit of a stooshie then broke out, and once that calmed down, I don't think the plan was then feasible.

[FarmerTweedy]

On 14/11/2021 at 17:27, Smithee said:

 

There are loads of things that could be done, architects aren't unimaginative.

 

I like PSV's approach in a tight space which this street view shows well

 

This picture shows quite well one of the reasons why we didn't go for cantilevering of the stand roofs (main stand aside). You can see that the structure actually sticks out quite a bit behind the back of the main body of the stand (i.e. the bit that holds the spectators. If the Gorgie, Wheatfield or School End had been built like that, they'd have needed to be at least a couple of rows smaller, maybe 3 or even 4 rows, to leave space for the cantilever structure. There simply isn't (or in the case of the Wheatfield, wasn't at the time) any more space behind the stands.

[PortyBeach]

1 hour ago, FarmerTweedy said:

The main issue was that Murray actually wanted to build a massive housing development on the green belt near Hermiston/Gogar.  A new stadium for Hearts, along with a smattering of other leisure/sports facilities, was an (unsuccessful) attempt by Murray to get the planners to relent on their (at the time) hardline opposition to any housing developments on the green belt.  

Thanks for shedding light on this.

(Sir) David Murray trying to pull a fast one! Who’d have thought it?

[FarmerTweedy]

On 14/11/2021 at 18:34, Smithee said:

AZ's stadium, although this is the one where the roof collapsed in bad weather!

 

It'll be fine, when do we ever get bad weather in Edinburgh?  

[FarmerTweedy]

18 hours ago, trotter said:

Very quick and dirty (again, not a slight, but it's an extremely complicated subject) risk is basically defined by frequency x consequence. In other words, what is the chance of something bad happening multiplied by whatever bad things it would cause if it did.  

 

Simply looking at the population numbers and omitting every other variable, you have a student population of what, say 500? (I don't know how much it holds) who will be there, call it 45 weeks of the year, that gives you 7,560 hours. Assuming they are at uni for 8 hours a day (again assuming 7 days a week just to make the maths simple) that leaves 500 people at risk for 4,989 hours per year. If we define the worst case of a massive explosion that will kill everyone 500 x 4,989 = 2,494,800 per year. Doing an equivalent equation for Tynecastle as it sits is 20,000 people for, say 3 hours, for 38 games a season (half of one and half of another) 38 x 3 x 20,000 = 2,280,000 per year. 

 

On the face of it, and again ignoring all other variables, we have roughly the same level of risk. The fun and games start when you add the variables, things like: blast proofing of buildings, ways to get out the buildings, wind direction, other structures in the way that can deflect blast overpressures, etc. etc. That makes a marked effect on said calculations. Before you laugh, the consequences modeling software I use to do these calculations (DNV PHAST if you want to look it up) takes all these things into account. So like I said, it's not a simple exercise. It's not as simple as saying well the students are there all the time, why can't we add another 10,000 capacity.

 

Hopefully that answers your question, more than happy to talk about it further 👍

 

EDIT: One other thing, NBD stores ethanol. Whilst very flammable indeed, it isn't explosive. You might have an initial small blast if the tanks caught fire internally but nothing that would affect the stadium or the students as it's not stored under pressure. I'm more concerned about what they keep next door at MacFarlan Smith. They have genuinely nasty shit there. I've been on both sites and I know which one scares me most. 

Does the software factor in most of the students being out on the bevvy the majority of the hours they're not at uni?

[trotter]

2 minutes ago, FarmerTweedy said:

Does the software factor in most of the students being out on the bevvy the majority of the hours they're not at uni?

Actually it does

 

You can use an occupancy factor to modify as a percentage the amount of time in a year thr building has people in it haha

[trotter]

4 hours ago, Hackney Hearts said:

 

Naïve as it may sound, it always strikes me that rather than doing complicated sums to work out how many people would get killed in certain scenarios, it might be better to ban these sort of dangers from residential areas full stop. This applies even more so to MacFarlan Smith, by the sound of it.

So that's actually the inverse of the problem we have. Both NBD and MS were built a long time ago (NBD a VERY long time ago), when zoning rules were very different. There is not a chance you could build them there today, or in fact, build Tynecastle. These days it's very much a case of whoever got there first, wins. The HSE who are ultimately the regulators for places like that generally devolves dealing with planning for them to the local authority (in our case ECC), however under the Land Use Planning regs, they can step in and veto a development if they believe it is unsafe. 

[trotter]

16 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Thank you for doing being much more precise with this than I was. You're right, I shouldn't have said "exploding." I think the main concern was a major fire in one of the high concentration tanks, and the fumes that could result from that fire.

 

Back when we were planning the main stand, I sat down and read the whole Tynecastle COMAH report. It's probably still available online somewhere but my takeaway was 1) H&S have drawn a red line as to the maximum capacity they'll allow Tynecastle to be under current circumstances, and we're pretty much at that point, and 2) there are definitely mitigations that could be done on site to change that, but NBDC aren't going to undertake them out of the kindness of their hearts and positive feelings for Hearts.

 

I also thought I remembered evacuation speed being a major concern listed, but I may have that wrong. My day job these days is software and data processing for emergency managers calling evacuations, so I may just have evacuations on the brain. 🙃

I wasn't calling you out for the explosive part, honest! It's just everyone seems to think that is the major risk, it isn't. If the tanks caught fire there would be massive thermal radiation effects on the stadium. Yup, evacuation timings and routes all factor in. 

8 hours ago, Nobreath said:

 

The level of security to get in there does hint at that.

It was the oleum that always made me most wary. Fuming sulfuric acid isn't something you want to spend a lot of time in close proximity of.   

6 hours ago, SUTOL said:

 

Good interesting post.

 

One thing you didn't mention is that the students would be inside their accommodation.

At Tynecastle the 20,000 are outside.

I'm sure that would change the risk profile.

Cheers 👍Oh, absolutely, there are literally hundreds of variables that can play a part. 

[King Of The Cat Cafe]

20 hours ago, trotter said:

Very quick and dirty (again, not a slight, but it's an extremely complicated subject) risk is basically defined by frequency x consequence. In other words, what is the chance of something bad happening multiplied by whatever bad things it would cause if it did.  

 

Simply looking at the population numbers and omitting every other variable, you have a student population of what, say 500? (I don't know how much it holds) who will be there, call it 45 weeks of the year, that gives you 7,560 hours. Assuming they are at uni for 8 hours a day (again assuming 7 days a week just to make the maths simple) that leaves 500 people at risk for 4,989 hours per year. If we define the worst case of a massive explosion that will kill everyone 500 x 4,989 = 2,494,800 per year. Doing an equivalent equation for Tynecastle as it sits is 20,000 people for, say 3 hours, for 38 games a season (half of one and half of another) 38 x 3 x 20,000 = 2,280,000 per year. 

 

On the face of it, and again ignoring all other variables, we have roughly the same level of risk. The fun and games start when you add the variables, things like: blast proofing of buildings, ways to get out the buildings, wind direction, other structures in the way that can deflect blast overpressures, etc. etc. That makes a marked effect on said calculations. Before you laugh, the consequences modeling software I use to do these calculations (DNV PHAST if you want to look it up) takes all these things into account. So like I said, it's not a simple exercise. It's not as simple as saying well the students are there all the time, why can't we add another 10,000 capacity.

 

Hopefully that answers your question, more than happy to talk about it further 👍

 

EDIT: One other thing, NBD stores ethanol. Whilst very flammable indeed, it isn't explosive. You might have an initial small blast if the tanks caught fire internally but nothing that would affect the stadium or the students as it's not stored under pressure. I'm more concerned about what they keep next door at MacFarlan Smith. They have genuinely nasty shit there. I've been on both sites and I know which one scares me most. 

Thanks for that: so we can have intelligent debates on Kickback.  Who would have thought?

 

BTW: on the subject of ethanol, I used to work in a laboratory and used pure ethanol and other tricky substances to test the quality of milk products.  One Christmas, a factory fitter decided that since he was a pretty hardened consumer of liquor he would try a glass of ethanol. He didn't make it to the party later that day...though luckily it did not kill hm.

[Hackney Hearts]

18 hours ago, trotter said:

So that's actually the inverse of the problem we have. Both NBD and MS were built a long time ago (NBD a VERY long time ago), when zoning rules were very different. There is not a chance you could build them there today, or in fact, build Tynecastle. These days it's very much a case of whoever got there first, wins. 

 

I know. But that's the bit that seems bizarre, when it should be a case of 'do you represent a danger to the area? - if so, you should move'. 

 

Tynecastle crowds may not suit all the local residents, but they're not going to kill them.

(unless it's been a really bad result and they're provoked)

[trotter]

3 hours ago, Hackney Hearts said:

 

I know. But that's the bit that seems bizarre, when it should be a case of 'do you represent a danger to the area? - if so, you should move'. 

 

Tynecastle crowds may not suit all the local residents, but they're not going to kill them.

(unless it's been a really bad result and they're provoked)

I tend to agree with you, a lot of it comes down to things being grandfathered in based on regulations in place at the time, not right now. There is also the not-so-simple question of 'who pays'? For example, if we wanted to build Tynecastle, from scratch, today, On the off chance that planning permission would be given (HSE take a dim view of putting new populations next to existing CoMAH sites - the same way they don't particularly like putting new CoMAH sites next to existing populations either), but say somehow we got it, one of the privisos would likely be either the distillery or MS have to move either all, or some of their operations/storage. Now, they could rightfully turn around and say, 'well, we'll happily move, but seeing as you want us to, and we were perfectly OK here up until now, you pay for it'. At that point it would likely come down to the Council/stadium developers deciding if it would be worth it for them to shell out for. How would you feel if planning permission was give to build the distillery today and we were told we had to move? Quite apart from the nostalgia/history, would you be happy if HMFC had to shell out when it's someone else's fault? We can't have it both ways unfortunately. 

Without being overly pessimistic, my hunch is that we are about at the limit for developing Tynecastle now. Maybe a few extra rows of seats could go in here and there, but large-scale redevelopment - I just can't see it passing muster. 

Edited November 16, 2021 by trotter

[trotter]

DP

Edited November 16, 2021 by trotter

[ericb]

If we removed the 4 floodlight stantions, we could fill in the corners with seats, put the floodlights along the roof? 🤔

 

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

1 minute ago, ericb said:

If we removed the 4 floodlight stantions, we could fill in the corners with seats, put the floodlights along the roof? 🤔

 

The roofs would fall down so it depends if we are OK with that.

[ericb]

2 minutes ago, Kalamazoo Jambo said:

The roofs would fall down so it depends if we are OK with that.

Do we need a roof?

[Libertarian]

On 15/11/2021 at 18:22, FarmerTweedy said:

The main issue was that Murray actually wanted to build a massive housing development on the green belt near Hermiston/Gogar.  A new stadium for Hearts, along with a smattering of other leisure/sports facilities, was an (unsuccessful) attempt by Murray to get the planners to relent on their (at the time) hardline opposition to any housing developments on the green belt.  

Obviously the planners opposition to housing development on the green belt has softened somewhat with the amount of house building going up all around Edinburgh 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

2 hours ago, trotter said:

I tend to agree with you, a lot of it comes down to things being grandfathered in based on regulations in place at the time, not right now. There is also the not-so-simple question of 'who pays'? For example, if we wanted to build Tynecastle, from scratch, today, On the off chance that planning permission would be given (HSE take a dim view of putting new populations next to existing CoMAH sites - the same way they don't particularly like putting new CoMAH sites next to existing populations either), but say somehow we got it, one of the privisos would likely be either the distillery or MS have to move either all, or some of their operations/storage. Now, they could rightfully turn around and say, 'well, we'll happily move, but seeing as you want us to, and we were perfectly OK here up until now, you pay for it'. At that point it would likely come down to the Council/stadium developers deciding if it would be worth it for them to shell out for. How would you feel if planning permission was give to build the distillery today and we were told we had to move? Quite apart from the nostalgia/history, would you be happy if HMFC had to shell out when it's someone else's fault? We can't have it both ways unfortunately. 

Without being overly pessimistic, my hunch is that we are about at the limit for developing Tynecastle now. Maybe a few extra rows of seats could go in here and there, but large-scale redevelopment - I just can't see it passing muster. 

 

I used to think the solution to the CoMAH problems was paying NBDC to rearrange their ethanol storage tanks to be further away from the stands.

 

Now I think it'll only be resolved if Hearts can partner with a housing developer to buy out the whole lot.

 

I don't think that's happening any time soon though.

[Kalamazoo Jambo]

28 minutes ago, ericb said:

Do we need a roof?

Right now there’s considerable support(s) for them.

[upgotheheads]

26 minutes ago, ericb said:

If we removed the 4 floodlight stantions, we could fill in the corners with seats, put the floodlights along the roof? 🤔

 

 

Have another look at the construction of the stadium when your there and look at what the stanchions support, it's not the floodlights. If you take away the stanchions the whole place falls down. A cantilever  is a device which does the same thing differently. Stand up and hold your arm out straight with a pint in your hand and see how long you can hold it,  then get a broom and support your hand with it. Notice the  difference. That's a stanchion.

 

Alternatively, tie a piece of rope to your left ankle, wrap it round your head and get somebody to tie the rope tight to your extended right arm, get them to put a pint in your hand and don't bend your elbow. Notice the effect. That's a cantilever

 

You'll die of thirst either way but at least you won't spill the pint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trotter]

4 minutes ago, upgotheheads said:

 

Have another look at the construction of the stadium when your there and look at what the stanchions support, it's not the floodlights. If you take away the stanchions the whole place falls down. A cantilever  is a device which does the same thing differently. Stand up and hold your arm out straight with a pint in your hand and see how long you can hold it,  then get a broom and support your hand with it. Notice the  difference. That's a stanchion.

 

Alternatively, tie a piece of rope to your left ankle, wrap it round your head and get somebody to tie the rope tight to your extended right arm, get them to put a pint in your hand and don't bend your elbow. Notice the effect. That's a cantilever

 

You'll die of thirst either way but at least you won't spill the pint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or for a visual representation look no further. Notice said chap in the middle isn't being supported from underneath. It's the cantilevers doing it. 

[upgotheheads]

7 minutes ago, trotter said:

Or for a visual representation look no further. Notice said chap in the middle isn't being supported from underneath. It's the cantilevers doing it. 

 

Aye, if the guy in the middle was a keg of beer they could have a party😊. 

[Vlad Magic]

The options for development in terms of capacity at Tynecastle are extremely limited.

 

Im warming more and more to a move.

 

Its the next stage in the history of the club.

[Thomaso]

9 minutes ago, Vlad Magic said:

The options for development in terms of capacity at Tynecastle are extremely limited.

 

Im warming more and more to a move.

 

Its the next stage in the history of the club.

Hope not

[heartsfc_fan]

32 minutes ago, Vlad Magic said:

The options for development in terms of capacity at Tynecastle are extremely limited.

 

Im warming more and more to a move.

 

Its the next stage in the history of the club.

Maybe a question in 10-15 years time if we are consistently selling out Tynecastle and in the top 3 season upon season.

For now we have an excellent stadium with the whole second floor of the Main Stand to increase revenue.

[Drew Wallace]

We are in a fantastic position on and off the park right now 

 

Most could only dream of 

 

Brilliant eh

 

FTH

[Jambo92]

1 hour ago, Vlad Magic said:

The options for development in terms of capacity at Tynecastle are extremely limited.

 

Im warming more and more to a move.

 

Its the next stage in the history of the club.

 

A move to where? Unless we have the money of the Premier league, the standard of stadium we would be moving to would be low budget and located in the middle of nowhere, it would most likely soulless and cause our average support numbers to decrease. Look at the recent Aberdeen plans for evidence.

 

Tynecastle is pretty much perfect, the only limitation is the size of the pitch but you could argue that's a benefit to us.  If we sell out every week then absolutely perfect.

[trotter]

On 15/11/2021 at 16:00, King Of The Cat Cafe said:

Thanks for that: so we can have intelligent debates on Kickback.  Who would have thought?

 

BTW: on the subject of ethanol, I used to work in a laboratory and used pure ethanol and other tricky substances to test the quality of milk products.  One Christmas, a factory fitter decided that since he was a pretty hardened consumer of liquor he would try a glass of ethanol. He didn't make it to the party later that day...though luckily it did not kill hm.

Wonders will never cease!

 

As an aside, most A&E departments keep a couple of jars of neat (94% abv - the strongest you can make it using normal distillation) ethanol around for when someone comes in having tried their hand at drinking methylated spirits, or denatured alcohol as it's also known). Companies add methanol to it so idiots won't try drinking it, but of course occasionally somebody will. Methanol WILL kill you, after making you blind first of course. However, the human body will preferentially process ethanol, leaving the methanol to run straight through you. So you'll wake up with a minging hangover, but crucially, you will wake up.

[ColinSmith1255]

30 minutes ago, trotter said:

Wonders will never cease!

 

As an aside, most A&E departments keep a couple of jars of neat (94% abv - the strongest you can make it using normal distillation) ethanol around for when someone comes in having tried their hand at drinking methylated spirits, or denatured alcohol as it's also known). Companies add methanol to it so idiots won't try drinking it, but of course occasionally somebody will. Methanol WILL kill you, after making you blind first of course. However, the human body will preferentially process ethanol, leaving the methanol to run straight through you. So you'll wake up with a minging hangover, but crucially, you will wake up.

Which explains why people, desperate for a drink used to turn up at A&E and say they had been drinking meths.

[tian447]

With the  we have, we can finally fill in the corners! 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

4 hours ago, Vlad Magic said:

The options for development in terms of capacity at Tynecastle are extremely limited.

 

Im warming more and more to a move.

 

Its the next stage in the history of the club.

 

So folk like Thomaso and trotter have pushed back on some things I've said about ways to make new construction possible at Tynecastle, with the main point being that we should enjoy the stadium we have for now, one that I fully agree with.

 

On the other hand, not having a go, but posts like this are why I want to keep pointing out that the issues at Tynecastle are sticky but not impossible.

 

Based on what other new purpose-built football stadiums have cost in the UK in the past decade, A new, purpose-built 30k seat stadium would undoubtedly cost north of £75m, more likely much higher, a cost that will go up with time. Aberdeen are likely going to pay £50m to get a stadium smaller than Tynecastle. Brentford just spent £71m just to get to 17.5k (although that did include a design to make it relatively easy to expand to 25k with planning approval). Some clubs building new 40kish stadiums are paying over £200m.

 

That's an absurd amount of cash—it wasn't long ago we had to scrape together £2.5 million, with the help of Ms Budge, to save our club from liquidation. But let's assume we had that kind of cash.

 

In that case, that's more than enough money to start talking about going in with a housing developer and buying out NBDC. That makes the #1 planning issue disappear. After that, a new super-sized Wheatfield replacement that held 16k or something could likely be done for £20-25m (again, based on similar projects elsewhere in the UK—a lot of the cost in stadiums is for facilities that usually go in the Main stand, which we just rebuilt.) That would take us to 30k, giving us far and away the largest club stadium outwith the OF without having to move an inch outside of Gorgie.

 

We don't need to expand any time soon. But if the time should come that we have the need and the resources, money solves problems.

[Section Q]

10 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

 

So folk like Thomaso and trotter have pushed back on some things I've said about ways to make new construction possible at Tynecastle, with the main point being that we should enjoy the stadium we have for now, one that I fully agree with.

 

On the other hand, not having a go, but posts like this are why I want to keep pointing out that the issues at Tynecastle are sticky but not impossible.

 

Based on what other new purpose-built football stadiums have cost in the UK in the past decade, A new, purpose-built 30k seat stadium would undoubtedly cost north of £75m, more likely much higher, a cost that will go up with time. Aberdeen are likely going to pay £50m to get a stadium smaller than Tynecastle. Brentford just spent £71m just to get to 17.5k (although that did include a design to make it relatively easy to expand to 25k with planning approval). Some clubs building new 40kish stadiums are paying over £200m.

 

That's an absurd amount of cash—it wasn't long ago we had to scrape together £2.5 million, with the help of Ms Budge, to save our club from liquidation. But let's assume we had that kind of cash.

 

In that case, that's more than enough money to start talking about going in with a housing developer and buying out NBDC. That makes the #1 planning issue disappear. After that, a new super-sized Wheatfield replacement that held 16k or something could likely be done for £20-25m (again, based on similar projects elsewhere in the UK—a lot of the cost in stadiums is for facilities that usually go in the Main stand, which we just rebuilt.) That would take us to 30k, giving us far and away the largest club stadium outwith the OF without having to move an inch outside of Gorgie.

 

We don't need to expand any time soon. But if the time should come that we have the need and the resources, money solves problems.

Agree with this. Money and engineering can solve most problems.

[trotter]

1 hour ago, Led Tasso said:

 

So folk like Thomaso and trotter have pushed back on some things I've said about ways to make new construction possible at Tynecastle, with the main point being that we should enjoy the stadium we have for now, one that I fully agree with.

 

On the other hand, not having a go, but posts like this are why I want to keep pointing out that the issues at Tynecastle are sticky but not impossible.

 

Based on what other new purpose-built football stadiums have cost in the UK in the past decade, A new, purpose-built 30k seat stadium would undoubtedly cost north of £75m, more likely much higher, a cost that will go up with time. Aberdeen are likely going to pay £50m to get a stadium smaller than Tynecastle. Brentford just spent £71m just to get to 17.5k (although that did include a design to make it relatively easy to expand to 25k with planning approval). Some clubs building new 40kish stadiums are paying over £200m.

 

That's an absurd amount of cash—it wasn't long ago we had to scrape together £2.5 million, with the help of Ms Budge, to save our club from liquidation. But let's assume we had that kind of cash.

 

In that case, that's more than enough money to start talking about going in with a housing developer and buying out NBDC. That makes the #1 planning issue disappear. After that, a new super-sized Wheatfield replacement that held 16k or something could likely be done for £20-25m (again, based on similar projects elsewhere in the UK—a lot of the cost in stadiums is for facilities that usually go in the Main stand, which we just rebuilt.) That would take us to 30k, giving us far and away the largest club stadium outwith the OF without having to move an inch outside of Gorgie.

 

We don't need to expand any time soon. But if the time should come that we have the need and the resources, money solves problems.

Absolutely agree LT. But the sticking point is not HSE, or paying money to others to move their shit to avoid that. It still comes down to do Hearts actually need a 25 - 30k stadium? Right now, there is no business case. Apologies for being blunt about it, but without one, there is no funding, regardless of other constraints.

 

Also, relocating NBD isn't simply about whoever ends up paying for it. Assuming they aren't simply going to shut up shop, they need to go somewhere. Where will that be? That will also be the responsibility of the developers. You also have the potential issue of contaminated land that has to be cleared before houses can be built. If we want 30k, we're leaving, unless someome wants to gift us a shit-tonne of cash to buy everyone out, clean the land and take all the responsibility for it. Then you also have to assume the residents on Wheatfield St/Pl will be happy with having what sun they have blocked out by a stand that physically has to be more vertical than horizontal to hold that capacity. If you add it all up, I just can't see it. Which is a ****ing shame, but I just can't see how it happens. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by trotter

[Bazzas right boot]

10 hours ago, Vlad Magic said:

The options for development in terms of capacity at Tynecastle are extremely limited.

 

Im warming more and more to a move.

 

Its the next stage in the history of the club.

 

 

Although happy we stayed I was never against a move, this was always going to be an issue in the future. 

 

Probably not a problem for 10 years plus tho. 

 

If we had Aberdeens relative league success then we'd Likley be full every week and looking to push on, bit to go on the Park for that tho. 

[Doc Rob]

9 hours ago, trotter said:

Wonders will never cease!

 

As an aside, most A&E departments keep a couple of jars of neat (94% abv - the strongest you can make it using normal distillation) ethanol around for when someone comes in having tried their hand at drinking methylated spirits, or denatured alcohol as it's also known). Companies add methanol to it so idiots won't try drinking it, but of course occasionally somebody will. Methanol WILL kill you, after making you blind first of course. However, the human body will preferentially process ethanol, leaving the methanol to run straight through you. So you'll wake up with a minging hangover, but crucially, you will wake up.

Not true about the jars, I’m afraid - you’re quite right about ethanol being the antidote for methanol (and for ethylene glycol, which is anti-freeze), but most departments keep a bottle of cheap vodka for the purpose. After all, your subject will need to drink it!

[EIEIO]

6 hours ago, trotter said:

Absolutely agree LT. But the sticking point is not HSE, or paying money to others to move their shit to avoid that. It still comes down to do Hearts actually need a 25 - 30k stadium? Right now, there is no business case. Apologies for being blunt about it, but without one, there is no funding, regardless of other constraints.

 

Also, relocating NBD isn't simply about whoever ends up paying for it. Assuming they aren't simply going to shut up shop, they need to go somewhere. Where will that be? That will also be the responsibility of the developers. You also have the potential issue of contaminated land that has to be cleared before houses can be built. If we want 30k, we're leaving, unless someome wants to gift us a shit-tonne of cash to buy everyone out, clean the land and take all the responsibility for it. Then you also have to assume the residents on Wheatfield St/Pl will be happy with having what sun they have blocked out by a stand that physically has to be more vertical than horizontal to hold that capacity. If you add it all up, I just can't see it. Which is a ****ing shame, but I just can't see how it happens. 

Think NBD have a biggish facility  near West Calder, maybe just warehousing currently though , but if they could sell their Gorgie site for big bucks they could relocate there?.

[Dayman]

What's the renovation that's currently happening? Seems to be some kind of rails going along the top of the Wheatfield. Lights, Cameras or posters/banners maybe?

[jbee647]

6 hours ago, EIEIO said:

Think NBD have a biggish facility  near West Calder, maybe just warehousing currently though , but if they could sell their Gorgie site for big bucks they could relocate there?.

Just warehouses, just for storage, at Addiewell (since early 1960s)

The NBD have been based at Wheatfield since 1885 and will have no desire to move, still investing  huge sums updating the plant, tbh they could buy and sell Hearts ten times over.

Although the relationship with Hearts has improved greatly in recent years in the past, it wasn’t always the case, Mercer, Robinson and Romanov were all shown the door when they tried to throw there weight around 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

15 hours ago, trotter said:

Absolutely agree LT. But the sticking point is not HSE, or paying money to others to move their shit to avoid that. It still comes down to do Hearts actually need a 25 - 30k stadium? Right now, there is no business case. Apologies for being blunt about it, but without one, there is no funding, regardless of other constraints.

 

Also, relocating NBD isn't simply about whoever ends up paying for it. Assuming they aren't simply going to shut up shop, they need to go somewhere. Where will that be? That will also be the responsibility of the developers. You also have the potential issue of contaminated land that has to be cleared before houses can be built. If we want 30k, we're leaving, unless someome wants to gift us a shit-tonne of cash to buy everyone out, clean the land and take all the responsibility for it. Then you also have to assume the residents on Wheatfield St/Pl will be happy with having what sun they have blocked out by a stand that physically has to be more vertical than horizontal to hold that capacity. If you add it all up, I just can't see it. Which is a ****ing shame, but I just can't see how it happens. 

 

On your first paragraph, I'm absolutely in agreement. The business case isn't there right now.

 

But it doesn't mean it won't be there in 15 years. The club has seen choppy but generally steady growth in attendances and ticket sales. I think in 5 years if we keep this form we could easily top 15k season tickets and game day tickets could become very hard to find. I don't mind riding that way for a few years but if season ticket waiting lists stretch to the thousands and stay there for years, the question will be asked eventually.

 

I'd rather have some kind of contingency plan for that now (and the club very likely have looked at this and just aren't sharing), because otherwise we're going to get a lot of, "reckon we need to move" sentiment growing.

 

But in your comment about a metric arseloads of cash, my point is that those sums would be required for a new stadium anyway. A brand new 30k stadium with good hospitality, corporate, non-game day amenities, training, offices, and the rest as we have now at Tynecastle is a £100m affair once land purchase is factored in, and while the Tynecastle land is worth more every year we'll still never get out what we've put into it. The only alternative that doesn't require silos of cash up front is paying rent at Murrayfield.

 

I've done facilities planning and estimates on smaller sites but I've never seen an estimate on the scale of the kind of industrial move-out and soil remediation that might be required at NBDC for housing, so I can only take wild guesses at price tags there. However, those sorts of "brownfield" developments are now happening in cities all over where housing pressures are getting intense, and they certainly are in Edinburgh.  If the construction costs of a new Wheatfield were £25m (which in today's costs would be plenty), you could plow £50m into site purchase remediation and still come out ahead at Tynie vs. a new build and still come out £25m ahead, even before housing. Even in expensive brownfield development, that's a lot of cash.

 

2 hours ago, jbee647 said:

Just warehouses, just for storage, at Addiewell (since early 1960s)

The NBD have been based at Wheatfield since 1885 and will have no desire to move, still investing  huge sums updating the plant, tbh they could buy and sell Hearts ten times over.

Although the relationship with Hearts has improved greatly in recent years in the past, it wasn’t always the case, Mercer, Robinson and Romanov were all shown the door when they tried to throw there weight around 

 

Glad we've stopped being pricks to them, no need for that certainly. I did note that they originally purchased the old school with an eye towards possibly using it for operations or storage, then changed their minds and put it back on the market. I wondered if that meant they were eyeing a move towards less plant at Wheatfield, but I'll take your answer as a no.

 

Even if they kept operations at Wheatfield, I would think some partnership could be reached to get them to just not store quite so much of the strong stuff quite so close to the stands. IIRC they did offer years ago to move the tanks further away, but wanted something like £2m from Hearts to help cover the costs.

 

The lot just across the bypass is just a big parking lot for the council to keep its big fleet vehicles on. In an ideal world you could just give NBDC the tail end of that lot for its big tanks and be done with it. Alas, land doesn't work that way.

[WageThief]

11 hours ago, Doc Rob said:

Not true about the jars, I’m afraid - you’re quite right about ethanol being the antidote for methanol (and for ethylene glycol, which is anti-freeze), but most departments keep a bottle of cheap vodka for the purpose. After all, your subject will need to drink it!

Is the subject still conscious enough to drink by that point?

[johnking123]

I would like us to plan ahead. If land around us can be purchased around us. We should really try to purchase it. We should have tried for school in my opinion. 

Edinburgh is growing and so is our support. Ten years time, we let land around us be purchased.  We will definitely be moving next time. Purchasing land around us will give us a chance to rebuild again. 

[Longbaws]

Has anyone thought of just building another 20,000 seats on top on the roof?

 

Loads of potential to expand.

 

"Ah hate playing at Tynecastle the fans are right on top of you"

 

* that would create 8 (eight) corners to be filled🇱🇻🍆

Edited November 17, 2021 by Longbaws

[Watt-Zeefuik]

4 hours ago, Longbaws said:

Has anyone thought of just building another 20,000 seats on top on the roof?

 

Loads of potential to expand.

 

"Ah hate playing at Tynecastle the fans are right on top of you"

 

* that would create 8 (eight) corners to be filled🇱🇻🍆

 

Surely we could rig a WWE-style cage top between the floodlight trusses. Just some catwalk-style metal grating should do the trick.

 

New kind of safe standing. Unobstructed views!

[Longbaws]

5 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Surely we could rig a WWE-style cage top between the floodlight trusses. Just some catwalk-style metal grating should do the trick.

 

New kind of safe standing. Unobstructed views!

I think you've nailed it!

[Arfur]

Isn’t the glenmorangie distillery site in Broxburn/Newbridge still vacant. Surely it would benefit NBD to take what would amount to a significant cash sum to move slightly outside the city (on the right side of town) into a site that is most likely already largely set up for their operation. As someone above has said Hearts could buy the site along with a developer and take their share directly behind the wheatfield stand.

Long term that should be in mind but short term working out a cost effective solution for sorting out the corner frames helps us so much. With those taken away some seats/large screens/combination of both can go in the corners and the pitch can be adjusted to be fully UEFA compliant (obviously taking some of the additional new seats away) buts lets be honest our current stadium with a resized pitch, large screens, corners completed even if with similar or only just bumped up capacity (say 23k) would do us for some time.

[EIEIO]

10 minutes ago, Arfur said:

Isn’t the glenmorangie distillery site in Broxburn/Newbridge still vacant. Surely it would benefit NBD to take what would amount to a significant cash sum to move slightly outside the city (on the right side of town) into a site that is most likely already largely set up for their operation. As someone above has said Hearts could buy the site along with a developer and take their share directly behind the wheatfield stand.

Long term that should be in mind but short term working out a cost effective solution for sorting out the corner frames helps us so much. With those taken away some seats/large screens/combination of both can go in the corners and the pitch can be adjusted to be fully UEFA compliant (obviously taking some of the additional new seats away) buts lets be honest our current stadium with a resized pitch, large screens, corners completed even if with similar or only just bumped up capacity (say 23k) would do us for some time.

Even if they stayed on the existing site in Gorgie it might make any surplus land ( eg the old Tynecastle school ) more valuable to NBD if their chemical tanks were moved further away from that site.  Would benefit us too if they were moved.  I realise they may have already agreed a price with the developers of the proposed student flats on the High school site so it's probably too late.

[Lfhearts]

On 17/11/2021 at 08:28, Smith's right boot said:

 

 

Although happy we stayed I was never against a move, this was always going to be an issue in the future. 

 

Probably not a problem for 10 years plus tho. 

 

If we had Aberdeens relative league success then we'd Likley be full every week and looking to push on, bit to go on the Park for that tho. 

Can just see you backing piemans move to Muddyfield, guys like you always think they know better, but some refuse to take their medicine not realising we would not have had a club if that happened (in my opinion).

[Stu_HMFC]

On 17/11/2021 at 08:28, Smith's right boot said:

 

 

Although happy we stayed I was never against a move, this was always going to be an issue in the future. 

 

Probably not a problem for 10 years plus tho. 

 

If we had Aberdeens relative league success then we'd Likley be full every week and looking to push on, bit to go on the Park for that tho. 

What Success ? finishing second to Celtic in a league what never had Rangers in it ? Finished second 4 times from 2014 to 2017/18 season. 

Would hardly brag about it and say we have been successful if it was Hearts.

 

The last time they won the league was 1983/84. 

 

The amount of semi finals and finals Aberdeen got into and won 1 a league cup v Inverness ? I wouldn't say that is success ?  The last time they won the Scottish cup was 1989/90