Three Way Land-swap
To complete the deal, it involved a simple land-swap arrangement of existing facilities across three sites:
- Cardiff Council gave a nominal 125year lease to Cardiff City on a 40acre block of land, on which the former Cardiff Athletics Stadium stood
- Cardiff City agreed to build a new athletics stadium on a further 20acre council owned plot north of the existing site
- On completion of the new athletics stadium, Cardiff City gained the 125 year rent-free lease. On half of the land they developed the new Cardiff City stadium and retail park
- The residual 20acres would be used for development of the new Glamorgan Records office (at the cost of the council), a hotel (build by the football club, which they could lease off) and the community sports facility House of Sport (built at the cost of football club, run by the council). If the football club failed to complete House of Sport development by December 2009, then the lease on the hotel would forfeit to the council
- The football club once the stadium had moved could sell the land of the former Ninian Park stadium for housing redevelopment
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen issues in construction across the two council owned sites, the football club incurred additional costs. This initially resulted in an agreement to lapse the development of the House of Sport until December 2010. In January 2009, with Cardiff City facing a winding-up order due to an outstanding £2.7M bill to HMRC, the club asked the council for permission to sell the residual 20acres to a developer.
Read more about this topic: Leckwith Development, The Proposal