Populous on their designs for Wrexham's new home: ‘The plan is to create a real cauldron'

New York Times

28-01-2025

Its back catalogue is impressive, featuring the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Wembley and The Sphere in Las Vegas.
Its order book is impressive, too, boasting proposed new homes for Roma and Inter, two powerhouses of Italian football determined to leave behind iconic venues in the hope of a brighter future.
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So when Wrexham secured architects Populous to map out their future at The Racecourse Ground, it was something of a coup.
Not only is Populous leading the updated design for the new Kop stand, due to open in the summer of 2026, it is also creating a masterplan to turn the world's oldest international stadium into a venue befitting the Premier League club that ambitious co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney want to become.
Revised plans are due to be submitted to the Borough Council at the start of next month and supporters are expected to get a first glimpse at images of the new Kop soon. Declan Sharkey, global director and senior principal at Populous, is leading the project.
'I genuinely believe this design would only work in Wrexham,' he tells The Athletic in an exclusive interview. 'It wouldn't work anywhere else in the world. This is truly of Wrexham.
'One quote really resonated with me throughout this design process. It was something Rob (McElhenney) said, which was basically how 'everything we do will have to represent the ethos of the town'. By that, he talked about hardworking, humble, friendly, inspirational, beautiful.
'That quote really started to drive our design. What you see, when looking at the materiality, will immediately speak of Wrexham.'
Supporters will welcome confirmation that serious developments are imminent in what has become quite the saga. Having laid derelict as a terrace for well over a decade, planning permission for a new 5,500-capacity Kop stand was granted in November 2022.
The site was cleared soon afterwards in readiness for work to begin. The intention was for the new facility — designed by AFL Architects and featuring office and retail space, plus an exhibition area that would double as a concourse on matchdays — to be ready for the start of the 2024-25 season, taking the capacity up to around 16,000 in the process.
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Instead, a series of problems soon emerged, including the need to re-route a sewer running under the site and relocate an electricity substation. Issues over funding for construction that will form a key part of the wider £25million Wrexham Gateway project — backed by the Welsh Government and designed to improve the main entry point to the city — and the legal transfer of the lease from the Wrexham Supporters Trust to the club also contributed to the hold-ups.
These delays led to a new temporary stand being erected just before Christmas 2023, initially with a 2,289 capacity that was extended to a little over 3,000 last summer.
Crucially, though, it also provided a sufficient pause for the club to have a rethink, particularly with regards to how to integrate a new Kop into any future plans to redevelop a venue where two stands date from the 1970s. Cue Populous coming on board last year to fulfil that vision.
Fast forward to today and those plans are ready. The new Kop will be built with a 5,500 capacity, as per the original planning permission, but there will now be scope to one day add another 2,000 seats within the original framework, subject to the club satisfying relevant planning criteria down the line such as transport capacity.
'We had a plan for 5,500 seats within a certain mass and a certain volume,' says Wrexham chief executive Michael Williamson. 'We wanted to maintain that because of the planning process and keep the consistency, not have to change that significantly.
'But we wanted to be able to future-proof within that mass and volume. If we wanted to expand and grow beyond those 5,500 seats, how can we do that? More importantly, what is the look and feel for the rest of the stadium in the future as we want to round out the corners, invest in other areas, grow other areas as we continue to, hopefully, rise up the pyramid?
'That was the key from the club's perspective. Not just the now, but also planning and preparing for the 'what ifs' in five, 10, 15 years' time.'
With the brief set, Populous embarked on an extensive fact-finding mission that saw Sharkey and his team head to north Wales. These visits included several on matchdays to sample the atmosphere at the SToK Cae Ras with its three covered stands and the temporary Kop.
'We spoke to a lot of the locals,' adds Sharkey. 'Everyone from the local commentator to the local pub owner right through to the tea lady. The one quote we heard over and over again is how Wrexham was built on coal and steel. That thinking goes into the materiality.
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'We also got out into the city (on a matchday). Early as well, to look for where people arrive and when. Where they go for a drink, where they get food, what excites them about the experience.
'Anything we deliver has to be familiar. For example, what works in Fulham or Tottenham will not work in Wrexham.'
A key element of Populous' preparatory work focused on retaining the vibrant atmosphere that, in recent years, has helped Phil Parkinson's side build a home record that is the envy of peers. This season, Wrexham have bagged nine more points than any League One rival on home soil.
Sharkey says: 'When looking at the Kop stand, the plan was to create a real cauldron. We explored acoustic design, our in-house team going into a lot of detail to ensure that the noise will be like no other.
'As a League One stadium, which it is at the moment, the atmosphere is incredible. But what the new stand will do is lift that up a couple of notches again.'
Just as with Wrexham's push for an unprecedented third consecutive promotion, there are considerable challenges that accompany trying to redevelop a football ground opened in an age before the motor car had been invented.
These include how the SToK Cae Ras is hemmed in on three sides by the busy Mold Road and Glyndwr University. Further headaches come via the two sizeable student accommodation blocks built directly behind the main stand in 2010-11, plus the housing estate that sits on the opposite side of Mold Road which, as the main route into the city centre, turns from a two-lane carriageway into one within yards of passing the ground.
Devising a plan whereby further expansion will be possible once the Kop is completed in 2026 won't have been easy. Not that Sharkey and his team see it that way.
'Yes, the focus right now is on the Kop stand,' he says about a structure that will be UEFA Category 4 compliant, which means it can be used to host internationals and UEFA tournaments. 'But a big part of our design process was considering the rest of the stadium. How it could be expanded or modified in the future. Also, the Gateway to Wrexham masterplan.
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'There are a couple of things (that are challenging). But, at Populous, we see constraints as a positive. What constraints do is truly give something a really strong identity.
'What we love about the Racecourse Ground is that four-stand identity, which really is the traditional British stadium that we are able to make modern. So, I believe all constraints will truly give the Kop stand a unique identity along with the rest of the stadium as we develop it.'
Populous is used to navigating challenging constraints, including the River Thames when constructing the new £100million Riverside Stand at Fulham's Craven Cottage. This included having to build parts of the structure at Tilbury in Essex and transport them via barge.
The results are striking. Simon Inglis, the UK's foremost stadium expert, told The Athletic last month: 'I personally think it's the best football stand of the 21st century.'
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Other projects by Populous, created in 2009 after previously operating as HOK Sport Venue Event, to have drawn significant praise over the past four decades include Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, Dublin's Aviva Stadium and Huddersfield Town's John Smith's Stadium.
Part of the first wave of new stadia built during the 1990s in response to the Hillsborough disaster that claimed 97 lives, Huddersfield's new home, complete with distinctive rollercoaster-style roof, stood out sufficiently from its rather functional peers to win the coveted Building of the Year award from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1995. This was the first time a stadium had been honoured in such a way.
Wrexham's new Kop is expected to be a worthy addition to such a prestigious stable, especially as fans are being promised a distinct North Wales flavour following a design process that has included major input from the club's Hollywood owners.
'Rob and Ryan have been phenomenal,' adds Sharkey. 'Their passion, their commitment, their vision for this club has really informed our design process.'
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The acting duo's big ambitions for Wrexham help explain why the new Kop is being built with a framework capable of holding 7,500 fans, even though initially the capacity will be 2,000 less.
Such an approach carries risk, as there are cost implications to go with no guarantee that permission will one day be granted for the extra seats. But, by doing the necessary building work now, Wrexham are saving themselves a lot of potential work — and substantial cost — in the future.
For Williamson, whose time in Italy working for Inter included leading the planning and design of a new training facility and redevelopment work at San Siro in Milan, the new Kop represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Wrexham's historic home.
'We are doing something that has a lifetime impact,' he says. 'That's what I love about being involved in stadium projects and mini-projects. Obviously, the SToK Cae Ras is the oldest stadium for international football.
'But beyond that, it will last for generations. In this case — and working within the confines we have — the unique thing about the Kop is that this is the only area where we will be able to build from scratch.
'The rest of the areas we are talking about improving in the future, they will be retrofitting within what we already have. This, we are starting from scratch. That's why it is so critical to get it right and to set the tone for that iconic feel and look you want the venue to be.
'What I'm hoping is when people see the facade of the Kop, around the world they'll say, 'That's Wrexham'. To be candid, there are many out there that look like spaceships dropped in the middle of somewhere.
'That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it wouldn't suit here because it would not represent what Wrexham is about.'
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