Coventry City Set to Buy Arena Land in £1.6m Council Deal
Coventry City is set to buy council-owned land beside the Coventry Building Society Arena for £1.6m, paid over 10 years to its community charity.
Coventry City Lines Up £1.6m Arena Land Deal, Paid Through Its Community Charity
The purchase is not a stadium rebuild. It is a land-control deal that makes a later regeneration simpler.
Coventry City Council is expected to sign off the sale of Car Park C at a cabinet meeting on 13 October, BBC News reported. The plot sits on the opposite side of the A444 from the stadium. The price was set after a valuation by consultants Lambert Smith Hampton.
Owner Doug King said the deal would let the club bring Car Park C into the existing head lease "and simplify future regeneration." Deputy council leader Lynnette Kelly said control of the car park would let the club plan for the future and look at wider regeneration of the area.
The money goes to the charity, not the council
The structure is the commercial point.
None of the £1.6 million is paid to Coventry City Council. It is paid to Sky Blues in the Community, the club's official charity, which is contractually required to spend about £160,000 a year on sport and cultural activity in the city for the next decade.
Kelly called it a win-win. The council keeps a public-benefit use on the proceeds. The club gets the land without a single cash settlement to the local authority.
There is still no scheme for the site
BBC News reported that there are no public plans for the car park land. Earlier ideas for the wider site have included an indoor ski slope and hotels. Both came and went.
King has not set out a development brief. The club's line is that bringing the plot into the head lease removes a split in control before any regeneration is designed. More detail is expected after the deal is finalised.
It sits on top of the stadium purchase
The land deal only makes sense because King already owns the club and the stadium. Coventry spent years in dispute over the arena under previous ownership. The council has since rebuilt that relationship, and this sale is the latest sign of it.
For a club whose matchday economics depend on one out-of-town bowl, the adjacent plot is option value. Hotels, event space, extra parking and non-matchday uses have all been floated before. None of them can be planned cleanly while the car park sits outside the lease.
Cabinet still has to approve the sale on 13 October. Until then, £1.6 million of land is a proposed transaction, not a completed one.
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