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opinionated-dick t1_j5iqnkq wrote

Football (shudder… soccer) fan from England.

My own stadium (St James Park) in Newcastle is the only U.K. club soccer stadium in the centre of the city, and it’s due a revamp due to new ownership.

Any American examples of stadiums that are located downtown but make really good use of the space around it for public square etc?

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rustyfries t1_j5iwshl wrote

> My own stadium (St James Park) in Newcastle is the only U.K. club soccer stadium in the centre of the city

Surely that can't be right? Ipswich Town and Hartlepool are both pretty much smack in the middle of the city at least going off where Google Maps puts that city centre.

Not to mention all the clubs in London that represent different suburbs.

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Sgtdeweyfish t1_j5j1azd wrote

Aren’t both Nottingham stadiums in the city centre (judging that on the proximity of hooters to the stadium)

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Magneto88 t1_j5iy844 wrote

It isn’t right, there’s quite a few stadiums that are just in or outside the town/city centres in the UK. Maybe right if you literally mean a few streets off the high street: The vast majority would be within the 5 mile range on this infographic aside from the odd stadium built within the last 10/20 years.

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jrhooo t1_j5p9je8 wrote

Yes.

A big philosophy right now is to create the stadium and surrounding areas a "entertainment districts".

Idea being, you develop the entire block as a part of town people come for recreation, and on game day, the games fuel increased profits for local bars and restaurants.

Same thing for concert or festival days.

And all together the bar and food scene helps create a return on investment on the city development effort that the stadium would have asked for anyways. (Meaning, if they are going to do the effort to run subways lines, repair roads, make the area transport accessible, might as well set up business that will benefit from it other than just a stadium)

That in turn also raises the property values of the hotels and residential buildings in the area, because the stadiums and concert stages bring investment in keeping the roads nice and local area clean and pretty, and the nicer retail outlets come in trying to get a piece of that partygoer spending, so then the apts/condos in that area are suddenly in the middle of the hot new nice area

They're calling them "Multi-Use areas or something now. All I know is, the wharf music area (The Anthem concert venue, Union Stage venue), and Nationals Park baseball stadium are all close enough to each other to walk, which means the same public infrastructure supports both, and the same bars, clubs, and shopping outlets benefit from their proximity to them

DC United soccer stadium bottom - National Park Baseball Stadium top

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np206100 t1_j5tih6c wrote

The baseball, basketball and new soccer stadiums are usually much smaller so can be more part of the city, some of the baseball stadiums are very historic (for US). Look at Cincinnati Ohio for examples along the River or Columbus Ohio for newly built stadiums close to city center that were built on an old prison ground (they don’t have NFL but a historic college football stadium).

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