It’s a sprint, as Patrick Ritz, Managing Director of Granit Bau Graz, puts it. But there is great confidence that the new football stadium near the railway bridge will be completed in the summer of 2023.
The new Donaupark stadium, designed for 5000 visitors and 500 VIP seats, will be purely a sports venue. Only football matches will take place here – in addition to Blau Weiß, U21 teams and women’s football teams will also play here. There are no plans to make the area available for concerts, for example, said Luger, a self-confessed blue and white fan.
The effects of the war in Ukraine, which are difficult to calculate due to the current situation in Europe, should not jeopardize the schedule. However, the costs for the project have risen by 15 percent, with the 32.2 million euros covering the entire construction project and not just the stadium, as Markus Eidenberger, Managing Director of ILG, explained during a visit to the construction site. As is well known, the Donauparkstadion will be built on a warehouse of XXX Lutz, which will build a new furniture store directly in front of the sports facility. The state of Upper Austria is paying three million euros from the public purse, the city of Linz seven million euros. “That’s still the case today,” says Eidenberger.
The decision for a hybrid model – Blau Weiß and XXX Lutz have to pay rent to the city as owners – sees Mayor Luger as groundbreaking. “We also decided to do this for economic reasons.” A total of seven to eight tenants will be accommodated on the entire site (including ancillary rooms and restaurants), with demand being very high. This also ensures that the capital grant from the city and the loans required for construction can be fully serviced.
About the construction site: 3,000 cubic meters of concrete and 280 tons of reinforcement have already been installed. The high-rise construction cranes have been erected, and at the same time the shell construction work for the basement, which will serve as storage for XXX Lutz, is beginning. According to the schedule, the floor slab for the ground floor should be completed by the end of June this year. After that, the stadium will be built on it. By the way: The soccer field will be finished a little earlier than the new furniture store.
Source: Nachrichten
