TheBrownBottle

Absolutely - which given the nature of the project, will be parametric level estimating to support a budget with whacking great big contingencies attached to it. I’m assuming that getting business case approval through PIF will be similar to investment-level business cases elsewhere - and you’ll be dealing with 0-2% design maturity. It’s a thumb suck at that point - you wouldn’t be going to contractors etc at that time.

If true, Isak has a fucking serious climb down to perform - no chance Liverpool are coming back with a bid in line with what we’ve asked for. His first action should be sacking his dickhead agent.

Looks about right based on the club’s accounts

You could be right - testing would normally be done on soils so that you can determine disposal and / or reuse. Determining piling depths requires heavy duty equipment.

Agreed, they do - what they don’t do is price up fit-outs on projects years away from completion. The fit out costs would be a % in an elemental cost plan. edit: NB civil engineering is not the same as construction - site investigations are treated entirely differently, are far more expensive and far more detailed. By way of an example, civil engineering costings treat site investigations as a direct cost i.e. a trade, rather than a prelim in regular construction.

Them too 😁

Hey, why not - anything is possible in the minds of the KSA govt. NEOM might ignore millennia of evolution of city planning and building, but KSA has banned the teaching of evolution, so why worry about it …

True - though that’s probably easier to say when you’re possibly the best defender in football history! I can still remember Woodgate’s debut at home to Chelsea at SJP (admittedly not in Maldini’s class, but possibly the best defender I’ve ever seen in B&W). Hasselbaink was put through, but Woodgate intercepted him in a movement I’d describe as being like a crocodile intercepting prey, and unlike what ever other English defender I’ve ever seen would do (attempt a last-gasp tackle), he put his studs on the ball, rolled it away from Hasselbaink, and pinged a pass out of the defence to feet - and Hasselbaink was a pretty handy CF. It is still the only time I can remember a collective gasp at SJP for defensive play - the feeling of ‘fuck me, that’s what a defender looks like’ suddenly dawning on 50,000 people. I’ll never forget it.

Tbf the billions they handed to Musk to help destroy US democracy - sorry, buy Twitter - is unlikely to reap financial rewards any time soon

The KSA govt is so full of shite that it’ll claim that the stadium will be able to host a match and then be ready propelled on rockets for the next match it holds in Saudi Arabia

Longstaff’s gone to Leeds man

True, and money is something that the NE doesn’t have - so it was to happen, it would be a long-term investment combined with the soft power political capital it would gain from the UK govt, one of the biggest supplier of arms to one of the world’s foremost dicatatorships - as if we’d need buttering up to flog weapons …

You trying to make us like you @Alan Pardew?

You’re possibly spot-on - or of course it was the words of a talented sales person saying exactly what was needed to help get her purchase over the line. PIF has been silent on this since day one.

For projects of this nature, you can be - you’d normally do optioneering even at a pre-concept design phase, and you can allow for multiple different design options depending on ground conditions based on assumed sites. In terms of the design concepts, that’s what I’d anticipate - you would do a pre-concept design (very, very high level), and might even price it (a ‘Class 5 estimate’ according to AACE guidelines, for those who want to learn what my day job looks like). Stadium pricing at that level usually uses ‘per seat’ as a primary unit of measurement. But you wouldn’t be able to price much from that beyond a parametric estimate - you certainly wouldn’t have fit-out schedules for pricing. So you can definitely produce a high-level concept of the design of the stadium build itself - but the idea that you’d approach subbies years before a shovel is in the ground for fit-out costs is completely laughable; any half-decent QS could do that on a £/m2 basis, and given you would doing simple cost-planning it is an immediate red flag for people talking complete shite. Re the training ground though, this is far less of a risk - you’re less likely to worry about weight loading on the foundations and so piling types, depths etc become far less of an issue. And again, internal fit out estimates for construction builds rather than civils tend to be even more accurate - so why would you bother approaching subbies? As a client, you would onboard a contractor who would deal with subbies. Again, it just reeks of an attempted ITK talking complete bollocks.

Yeah, that’s 100% right mate 👍

Productivity and hourly rates come into play Groundhog - this one needs good old fashioned 'first principles' estimating. Your materials costs are only part of it . So it depends on how much you're paying yourself and how long it takes - I'd expect a decent painter to get through about 12m2/hr per coat. I hope you're demanding results from yourself

Go on then - I'll pull rank on this one I'm a civils QS who runs a team of three dozen civils, mech and elec QSs for a client with an annual spend of AUD$3.5bn p.a. - we estimate for the entire portfolio each year. The biggest project I've estimated on this year would absolutely dwarf (by multiples) even the craziest numbers posted on a new SJP. I've estimated on major stadium builds over here too. You can't adequately plan for anything without having a site - the construction method and costs are entirely determined by the site itself - everything from foundations and structural requirements to working space restrictions to site access have massive contributing factors to the ability to build and the accuracy of the cost. Designing without site investigations and geotech is a complete waste of time. No civil engineer worth their salt would propose designing without actually knowing what the site conditions were (though I've seen this done, and been entertained by the look on a PM's face when detailed design commences and the cost increases are obvious due to the total lack of work further up the project life cycle) Now, you can make assumptions re the purchase of the site - but that would be a pretty major assumption, given that there may be difficulties in planning etc. Stadium fit-outs and training ground fit-outs - I was a QS on Leicester's back in the UK* are buttons next to the cost of building the structure, and getting the client's designer to approach subbies for pricing fit-outs to works not likely to commence any time soon is a complete and utter waste of time. So I'm calling 'bollocks'. *which is where I learned about the exciting world of PL ground floodlight requirements - which needed upgrading thanks to HD TVs ...

Tbf TJ - I was referring to your mate, not to yourself directly

Absolutely, hence the Area 51 reference - it is all public domain, to allow the public to put forward any issues with the proposed development. If folks are going to try and pretend to be ITK, I wish they'd line the facts up first.

TBF I can remember what most football fans made of a tricky young foreign winger who was seen as skilled but ineffectual after his debut season at a big Manchester club - all pointless tricks with no end product ...

That can't be right - it would be a complete abuse of the position and very easy to call out if true

Even if it is true - and it doesn't sound like it to me (they're building a stadium, not the NE's answer to Area 51) - then it is a complete and utter fucking disgrace if the club's owners - worth c.1tn and 20bn respectively - go to the council for a handout for soft landscaping; especially given the bollocks that Staveley came out with re 'investment in the region' to help get the takeover approved (which so far appears to be a stake in Newcastle Airport).

Anyway, Isak is a cunt - pass it on

100% - all of them had it. I'd add KK to that mix. Ardiles, who wasn't a particularly good manager, had integrity. Gullit, who was a shite manager, also had it. Pardew, Bruce, Souness - I only include permanent managers - lacked it completely; I'd argue that Dalglish was almost as spineless (dedicating the 1998 FAC SF win to Douglas Hall and Freddie Shepherd after their NOTW expose was a low for him), but didn't lack integrity like those three.