Premier League football team Fulham has appointed the Sodexo Live! division of catering and facilities management provider Sodexo as the venue partner for Fulham Pier, through which part of the club’s Craven Cottage stadium is undergoing extensive redevelopment work.
Fulham Pier will seek to become one of London’s leading leisure destinations on the banks of the River Thames and will include restaurants, a market, meetings and events spaces, bars and lounges, a basement entertainment venue, a boutique hotel and a spa experience.
Fulham’s leadership team will work Sodexo Live! on the project, with the company to act as the commercial lead on the wide-ranging development. Sodexo Live! will support the physical delivery and also select a range of premium-branded retail partners for the project.
Following the completion of the project, Sodexo Live! said the capacity of Craven Cottage will increase to 28,000. Fulham has previously said the capacity will increase from its current 25,700 to 29,600.
Sodexo Live!’s agreement with Fulham will include hospitality, retail and non-event day sales and catering, as well as commercial support during the renovation of Craven Cottage.
Work on the stadium’s new Riverside Stand began in the summer of 2019. Fulham appointed Buckingham Group Contracting as the lead contractor for the project in late 2018 and the club worked with architecture firm Populous on the stand designs.
In March, Fulham, which bounced back to the Premier League last season at the first time of asking, announced that fans would be able to use the new stand during the coming season but the project will not be fully completed until the 2023-24 campaign.
The lower tier of the stand is set to open for the 2022-23 season, but Fulham said the “complex nature’ of the project, coupled with pandemic-related issues, will see the development continue throughout the campaign.
Following the announcement of the Sodexo Live! deal, Fulham chief executive Alistair Mackintosh said: “Fulham Pier is a game-changing development for the local community. It will not only bring a wide range of high-quality amenities to the area; it will also attract visitors from far and wide. We are glad to be working with Sodexo Live! on the project and we look forward to making Fulham Pier a remarkable destination.”
David Trotter, divisional managing director of Sodexo Live! UK & Ireland, added: “This is an incredible project that will put Fulham Pier at the heart of its community, as a leader in cutting-edge hospitality and leisure. We are delighted to be the venue partner for Fulham FC and look forward to bringing the breadth of our knowledge in hospitality, retail, guest experience and venue management to this amazing project.”
Image: Sodexo
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