IT is over seven years now since it emerged that Dundee owners Tim Keyes and John Nelms had bought a plot of land in the Camperdown area of the city with a view to building a new stadium on it and the soil on the site remains unbroken.
Supporters of the Dens Park club could, despite all of the public consultations which have been held and positive noises which have emanated from the boardroom since, be forgiven for feeling a little sceptical about the much-heralded move away from their beloved spiritual home ever coming to pass.
Yet, a lavish Holmes Miller Architects’ “design concept” for the development was published on their official website yesterday morning along with a statement which revealed that a planning permission in principle application will be submitted “imminently”.
So is the dream set to become a reality at long last?
Dundee managing director Nelms exuded optimism as he spoke to the media at their Gardyne training base following the announcement. In fact, he stressed he is hopeful the ambitious project will be completed by the summer of 2025.
“The city council said just recently that they are there to remove barriers and look at helping regeneration,” he said. “That is heartening for people like us. They will be a team member as opposed to adversarial.
“What we have done is way beyond the normal planning in principle. We call it planning in principle on steroids. It is bad because it takes so long to do and is so very costly. But it is also very good because once they say ‘yes’ all that work has already been done.
“That (the move being completed by the summer of 2025) is my target. Whether or not that is realistic will see. The construction of the stadium, although it is a big facility, it is not very complicated. We will be aggressively pushing to get it done as quicky as possible.”
“You can’t have the finance in place until its ready to go,” he said. “There are people we are working with who are saying, ‘Here are the facilities that are afforded to you guys’. We have the funding in principle, but until it’s done you don’t have it.
“The ownership structure is Tim and I, Dark Blue Property Holdings. There will be a cash contribution from the ownership group. Then we will have a facility sat next to us. Think of it as a house mortgage, it is very similar to that. Much more complicated than that, but similar.
“The cost has gone up. The total number is an estimate until we get to final construction numbers. From 2016 to now it has probably risen £10m overall. But with what we are doing and how we are doing it, we still think it is still very viable.
“Everything around it is enabling it to happen. That is why it is important to have all these other bits and pieces. The stadium has to work seven days a week, 365 days a year.”
The access to the new stadium – which will have a capacity of “more than 12,500”, will comprise a multi-use event space for over 1,000 people and will have a 120 bedroom hotel on its campus - from the A90 ring road which circles Dundee city centre had been viewed as a serious stumbling block in the past.
“You have to remember all the traffic on matchday already comes down this site on the way to Dens. And getting away fans in and out is much easier at this site.
“All of the studies have come back looking great. We do not foresee any issues whatsoever, which is unusual for a development of this size. I hope the whole thing will be passed.”
Tears will be shed by Dundee supporters when the bulldozers start to roll down Sandeman Street to demolish Dens Park.
But Nelms feels the move is essential if they are to meet the considerable challenges presented the modern game and he believes that most fans understand the logic behind what is being proposed.
“We are in the 21st century and we have a 19th century building,” he said. “It is now costing nearly £700,000 a year to keep Dens looking like Dens. We love it, but it is what it is.
“The only thing it can really do is have football matches. We don’t have the ability to hold concerts. I am not sure the electricals system would hold up for us to plug anything else into the building.
“We get passed over for Aberdeen, even Inverness. Our city is growing and we need to put those kind of events on for the city. I think it is right to do that.”
Nelms added: “We have had three of four public consultations. We had a vote before our first public consultation a couple of years ago and over 84 per cent of our fan base said, ‘We absolutely have to move’. A small per cent said, ‘Absolutely not’. Then we had a group who were on the fence.
“I understand wanting to stay there. But it is never going to get cheaper. It is going to get more and more expensive to be a part of Dens Park, it will continue to cost more and more to keep it looking the way it is. It has started to become detrimental to the football club.
“We've put so much effort into this. We have over £1m worth of studies into this. We're heavily invested in it. We have to be more modern, we have to evolve.”
