By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 19 – With Widzew Lodz eyeing a new stadium, the municipal authorities of Lodz have launched a tender to build a new sports facility which is designed to revamp the troubled Polish football club and boost match attendance.
The decision to build the PLN 130 million (€31 million) stadium was jointly announced by Mayor of Lodz Hanna Zdanowska and Widzew’s chief executive Pawel Mlynarczyk at a press conference.
“Now we will need 40 days to complete the tender,” Zdanowska said. “We have earmarked PLN 170 million in our budget for this, including PLN 130 million for the stadium and PLN 40 million for related road construction works.”
Widzew’s current stadium has a seating capacity of 10,500, of which only 1,192 seats are under a roof. The new facility is expected to triple the capacity.
The latest move follows earlier attempts to build a new stadium for Widzew. In 2010, the club signed a deal with local architecture firm JSK Architekci to design the planned facility. The stadium was to have a capacity of between 32,000 and 33,000 seats, but its construction was eventually scrapped.
“It is a very important day and a big success for the city of Lodz and Widzew. The decision is related to a very significant investment in what relates to [the club’s] future in Lodz,” Mlynarczyk said.
“I think that we needed time to make sure that the tender is not cancelled for some reason.”
Set up in 1910 and based in Lodz, in central Poland, Widzew currently plays in the Ekstraklasa, the top tier of the Polish professional football league.
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