Featured image credit: Valencia CF
Spanish LaLiga club Valencia has appointed FCC Construcción to complete the construction of its Nou Mestalla project, with work scheduled to resume on Friday.
FCC and Grupo Bertolín were part of the original joint venture for the construction of the stadium, but the latter company will no longer be part of the project.
FCC oversaw the construction of Atlético Madrid’s stadium, the Riyadh Air Metropolitano. The company also worked on Espanyol’s RCDE Stadium and the redevelopment of Real Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu.
The Nou Mestalla will have a capacity of 70,044 and will feature an open façade consisting of metal strips. Construction work on the project has been suspended since February 2009, but in May last year Valencia claimed a breakthrough after an agreement was reached for the sale of land attached to the stadium.
In July, Valencia received the green light from the city council to resume work on the project, and the club had been hoping to restart construction work within six months. This looks set to be achieved, with the club planning on breaking ground this Friday.
Valencia received a further boost for the project in November after completing a refinancing operation that paved the way for construction to recommence this month.
Valencia had been working on the execution of a long-term corporate facility of €121m (£100m/$125m) and a short-term bridging loan facility of €65m. The two transactions closed in November, with Valencia having repaid all of its existing corporate debts.
The new corporate debt facility of €121m has been raised in the capital markets, specifically in the United States Private Placement (USPP), made up of “prominent” professional investors. Goldman Sachs acted as the creditor in the €65m short-term bridge loan facility, which will be subsequently refinanced by the Nou Mestalla project financing.
The construction project must be completed within 30 months of work commencing. The club’s revised plans for the project, presented back in June 2022, called for a capacity of 70,000, but initially limited to 49,000.
The Nou Mestalla did not make the Spanish Football Federation’s list of 11 proposed stadiums for the 2030 FIFA World Cup. Spain will co-host the World Cup alongside Portugal and Morocco, with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay also set to stage “celebratory” matches during the tournament.
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