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LKS Lodz completes 18,000-seat stadium two months early

Polish football club ŁKS Lodz has taken ownership of its expanded 18,000-seat stadium some two months ahead of schedule.

The PLN 129m (£23.0m/$30.0m/€27.5m) Władysław Król Stadium will be officially opened on April 22 ahead of the sporting club’s football team’s second-tier Liga I game against Chrobry Glogow. Fans will be presented with a special package consisting of a commemorative T-shirt, a scarf and a commemorative ticket.

The project, which was given the go ahead in 2019, has seen the small stadium with a single stand transformed into a large arena with four full stands. The new stands will include a museum of the Lodz Sports Club, shop, restaurant and retail and service space, as well as offices, conference rooms and a banquet hall.

The stadium has been developed by the City of Łódź and construction company Mirbud, and has now been granted permission to host events by the local authority as well as fire and police services.

Marek Rosa, Mirbud’s construction manager for the project, said: “We are handing over a professional stadium, one of the prettiest in Poland.

“Thank you for making the entire investment run smoothly. I do not hide, we were secretly hoping that this season we would be able to play matches in four stands. This is a great success, because probably not all investments are carried out ahead of time, and this particular one was difficult, taking into account, for example, the number of necessary permits that had to be obtained.”

The new stadium has been built upon the site of ŁKS’s Stadion Miejski ŁKS, which dates back to the 1920s.

Work on the initial phase of stadium development began in 2014, when Mirbud was awarded the contract to build the first stand, which had a capacity of around 5,500. The second phase commenced in June 2019 with a completion target of 36 months, which has been beaten despite the challenges of the pandemic during that period.

Image: LKS Lodz

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