Featured image credit: Populous
The Municipality of Milan has voted to approve a masterplan for the proposed development of a new stadium for AC Milan and Inter Milan, which includes new conditions that the Serie A football clubs will need to work with to amend the current vision for the project.
The City Council yesterday (Thursday) voted 27 in favour and 14 against, with one abstention, on the proposals to amend the masterplan. This arrives following the closure of a public consultation process last month.
The onus will now move onto the clubs to implement the proposals, but rejection yesterday would have dealt a significant blow to a project that has already encountered substantial challenges. Among the key provisions in the document, according to the MilanoToday website, is for the stadium capacity to be raised from the originally proposed 60,000 to 70,000.
A major concern regarding the new stadium proposal has been how its smaller capacity, versus the circa 80,000 of the current Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, would impact on ticket prices. A substantial increase in the usable green space compared to the current proposal, so that this represents 50% instead of 18% of the total area, has also been proposed.
Meanwhile, it has been requested that €40m (£35.1m/$42.5m) be directed into the regeneration of local neighbourhoods. Councillor for Urban Regeneration, Giancarlo Tancredi, said: “This agenda goes in the direction of a continuity of the ongoing procedure that started three years ago and an improvement, to enrich the teams’ proposal in a significant way.
“Between this meeting of the City Council and the Council’s resolution on the public interest of the new stadium project, we will still have to deal with the teams for the implementation of these proposals.”
Discussing yesterday’s vote earlier this week, Inter CEO, Alessandro Antonello, reiterated the chance of a ‘plan B’ should the current plans be faced with insurmountable challenges. Antonello said: “If there were indications such as to make it impossible to build a new San Siro in Milan, we have identified some areas and we will be ready to activate the alternative plans.”
The Municipality of Milan was last month presented with a 64-page report on the proposed new stadium that was the result of a public consultation that organisers stated had been one of the most followed in Italian history.
Public debate commenced on the Stadio Milano project on September 28, with a fresh look provided at the design proposals and original plans to retain some part of the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza being scrapped. The whole process was previewed at a presentation, during which fresh renderings were revealed that displayed some differences from the original plans.
Populous this time last year saw off competition from Manica/Sportium to land the contract to design the new stadium. Populous’ project, dubbed ‘The Cathedral’, was selected, with the coming weeks having promised the finalisation of the objectives and development process of Milan’s new stadium.
Bureaucratic red tape has stymied progress since then, but the plans laid out in September showed the angular stylings originally proposed for the new 60,000-seat stadium having been somewhat smoothed off. These changes are still provisional, however, and are expected to be altered further.
The Meazza, more commonly known as the San Siro, had been expected to be partially demolished after holding the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games and converted as part of the wider sports and entertainment district vision for the site.
However, it was revealed that this plan had changed with the Meazza now set to be demolished completely when Milan and Inter move into their new home in 2027, in order to better accommodate the sports and entertainment district, which will include a public park.
The debate process allowed the presentation and emergence of proposals connected to stakeholders who are seeking to ensure the Meazza remains.
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