Financing for Crystal Palace stand construction not completely secured
Financing for Crystal Palace’s new major stand redevelopment has not been completely secured, the club’s chairman Steve Parish has revealed.
The Premier League club is looking to expand its Selhurst Park home to 34,000 seats, up from 25,400, with an all-glass-fronted main stand.
The club paid millions to purchase a number of local residential properties but the construction, which was announced in 2017, is five years beyond its initial completion date.
“We’re looking at different ways of funding, but that will be in place,” Parish told The Athletic. “We’re working with people on that, talking to the banks. It’s more managing the construction, processing inflation and trying to reduce some costs.
“But the reason that everybody hasn’t got a shiny new stadium is that the money will always go to the team. We spent on the team, which is the more recent reason that it isn’t fully going on.”
Palace – which is co-owned by New York Jets shareholder Woody Johnson, long-standing Palace chairman Parish, Josh Harris, David Blitzer and others – also spent tens of millions on land adjacent to their Beckenham training and academy sites earlier this month – though Parish stated that the club were not yet certain what purpose it will serve.
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Their stadium redevelopment would make Selhurst Park the 15th biggest football ground in England, between Middlesbrough’s Riverside and Derby’s Pride Park, and continues a trend of upgrading venues across the Premier League and wider English football pyramid.
“The material cost is the big issue,” Parish added. “There’s been such inflation, so we’re just reviewing materials that we’re using on the facade and maybe some slight design changes, just to see if we can value-engineer the cost down slightly.
“We have a new project management company that we are hopeful will start soon. It will get done. We’re absolutely committed to it. It’s essential.
“We started demolition and enabling works because we couldn’t do any of that outside of the closed season. We were a bit in front when we did it, otherwise it would have meant a year before we could have started anything.
“We’re putting a fan zone back temporarily. It won’t be quite the same, but at least it’ll be a place where fans can congregate. The new hospitality is sensational – probably better than we had.”