Reply To: Betie’s (National Stadium) Bowl

The stadium part will probably be built to a 60-65k capacity (cost about $300m euro or thereabouts) with the rest of the campus deferred. I’ve always thought that the indoor arena part of the overall plan should be built in downtown Dublin anyway, the docklands being the most obvious place. It would attract people into the area for concerts, sporting events (there’ll be an ice-hockey franchise like the one Belfast has in Dublin in a few years time) and exhibitions etc.

If you look at North America (which is at the forefront of stadia building and location), their indoor arenas are usually in downtown locations, while their stadiums are in suburban settings e.g. New York, Boston, Washington, Montreal etc, etc. The arena could be heavily financed by the private sector too, since it’ll corner the market for indoor concerts (the Point and the RDS are just warehouses after all with relatively small capacities). I think it’d provide a nice focus for the docklands redevelopment (pathetic and all as thats been so far) since the Abbey theatre won’t be moving after all.