Everton is edging closer to moving away from Goodison Park, their home since 1892.
[ MORE: PL clubs celebrate Thanksgiving ]
The Toffees released a statement on Thursday saying they’ve exchanged contracts on a lease to buy the land at Bramley Moore Dock where they hope to build their new 60,000 capacity stadium.
It is believed the new stadium would cost over $400 million, while the total for regeneration work in the Bramley Moore area in north Liverpool could be over $7 billion.
The club and Liverpool City Council have worked together tirelessly to make this stadium plan a possibility after several failed attempts to build Everton a new home in the past.
Everton called it a “significant milestone” in their stadium move and added that the club “effectively now controls the land upon which a new stadium would be built.”
This is a huge moment for Everton and their owner Farhad Moshiri who has made building a new stadium his top priority since buying a 49.9 percent share of the club in February 2016.
Below are more details from the statement released by Everton, which you can read in full here.
Everton Stadium Development Limited (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Everton Football Club) and Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited have formally signed an agreement for the Club to lease land at Bramley Moore Dock, Liverpool Waters.
The lease, which is conditional upon gaining planning consent for the proposed new stadium and securing funding for its construction, will run for a period of 200 years at a peppercorn rent.
The signing of the agreement is a significant milestone in the project and means Everton effectively now controls the land upon which a new stadium would be built. This follows several years of searching for a new site and is the culmination of an exhaustive search across the city.
Robert Elstone, Chief Executive at Everton Football Club, said: “Clearly, this is very positive news. Gaining control of the site was essential for us to be able to move forward with the next stages of the project – finalising the funding agreement with the Council and preparing for the submission of a planning application – both of which we hope to do in the new year. I’d like to thank Peel as well as Mayor Anderson and his colleagues at the Council for their support in getting us to this point.”
The proposed new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock will be a catalyst for the £5.5bn regeneration proposals for North Liverpool which is set to be one of the largest and most transformational in the city’s history.
