Sports 60,000 seats
Costs more than doubled – Stuttgart’s European Championship stadium is almost finished
As of: 1:35 p.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
The modernization of the Stuttgart stadium was supposed to cost 65 million euros. In the end it became significantly more
Quelle: Getty Images/Christian Kaspar-Bartke
The modernization of the Stuttgart stadium for the European Football Championship is almost complete. On Sunday, all 60,000 places will be available for the first time. The construction took significantly longer than planned. And above all, it was much more expensive.
After a delay of several months and a race against time, the main stand of the Stuttgart stadium will reopen at full capacity just eleven weeks before the European Football Championship. At the home game of Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart on Sunday against 1. FC Heidenheim (5.30 p.m./DAZN), after investments of almost 140 million euros, all 60,0000 seats and the new business area will be available for the first time since construction began in June 2022.
Initially, the project was only supposed to cost 65 million euros when the Stuttgart municipal council approved it at the end of 2019. The costs have more than doubled since then. According to the city, a “rough” sum of around 350 million euros has been invested in the arena in several modernization phases since 1990.
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Of the 139.5 million euros for the renovation, the state capital says it will pay 58.5 million, with 36.5 million coming from Stadion KG. The city explained that the tenant VfB would take over 61 million euros directly through capital contributions and indirectly through higher lease payments to the stadium company. In addition, the club is investing another around 30 million euros in interior design and event technology, among other things.
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The new construction of the lower tier of the main stand and the modernization will provide the club and the Stuttgart location with “many added values and advantages on practically all levels,” said VfB CEO Alexander Wehrle to the German Press Agency. The construction work was not yet completely completed on Sunday.
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The new players’ changing rooms and the media center will not be ready until the VfB game against Eintracht Frankfurt (April 13). At the European Championships (June 14th to July 14th), the German national team’s second group game against Hungary (June 19th) will take place in Stuttgart.
