Rendering of AS Roma Stadium Exterior
The new 52,500-seat Stadio della Roma, home of soccer club AS Roma, is on track to be a gamechanger for Southern Europe and AEG Facilities is on board to help make it happen.
Chuck Steedman, AEG Facilities COO, said the new stadium which should begin construction in the first quarter of next year and open in 2019 will be the first destination stadium development in that region of the world. The stadium itself, designed by Dan Meis Archtects, has a lot more than soccer in mind.
“It will anchor a campus, number one, which hasn’t been seen in Southern Europe,” Steedman said. “Curationwise and programmatically, it will be the busiest outdoor venue in the world stadiumwise. It’s being designed from an amphitheater perspective to have not only major stadium concerts but also smaller, cutdown endzone concerts. It will be the centerpiece of festivals across a broad spectrum of genres.”
Estimating it will do in the low hundreds of events, which includes 20-30 AS Roma soccer games, Italian National team games, Italian rugby matches and Monster Trucks, Steedman declared “It’s going to be a jumping place.”
There will also be a lot of nonevent business, he added. “The five clubs will be cranking on a regular basis for social and corporate events."
Not only is this the biggest project in Europe, it is also the first to come under the direct control of AEG Facilities Global Solutions, a new division headed by Jay Cooper. Cooper was on his first conference call with AS Roma just yesterday and Steedman said it was the smoothest of one-stop shopping ops.
AEG Facilities is “responding to the market and consolidating everything we’ve done in the past and can do under one specific area, so it truly is one-stop shopping for a potential client,” Steedman said of the new division. While AEG is one company and has multiple divisions which service all its clients including AEG Facilities, AEG Real Estate Development and AEG Global Partnerships, AEG Facilities Global Solutions will be the client-facing facilitator tapping into those resources, he explained. “We weren’t able to coordinate it as easily as we can under this umbrella.”
The plan is to expand services, coming in at an earlier stage of new construction and helping effect decisions clients are making with owners reps and food and beverage and so forth.
AEG Facilities has been doing projects with AS Roma since last August, but “now we are totally, fully engaged in the most important stages of preplanning and preopening. A year ago, we did some benchmarking and early design review,” Steedman said, adding it is a longterm agreement beyond opening and includes venue management services, operations, booking and finance.
The planned 52,500-seat facility is anticipated to open for the 2019 – 2020 Italian Serie A season.
“AEG Facilities is a worldwide leader in the global sports market and we are proud to be partnered with them,” commented AS Roma President Jim Pallotta in a press release. “We look forward to working closely with their team of industry experts and have total confidence in AEG’s ability to lead day-to-day stadium operations and a mix of year-round entertainment events that we plan to hold at the Stadio della Roma.”
The development project will be anchored by AS Roma's new state-of-the-art stadium (expandable to 60,000), and will also feature a new team training facility, and several entertainment and F&B zones being developed by AS Roma. The interactive areas of the complex will include a live entertainment amphitheater, bars and restaurants, fan-friendly piazzas for gatherings, branded experiences, a museum dedicated to the storied history of AS Roma and a team merchandise store.
The total master-site project budget is projected to be in excess of $223 billion with over $446 billion in privately funded public infrastructure works.
Interviewed for this story: Chuck Steedman, (213) 763-5446