As Chelsea announced a couple weeks ago in a letter to local residents, stakeholders, members, and season ticket holders, the club will be hosting a three-day exhibition and open consultation starting tomorrow, June 30th about the future of Stamford Bridge. As part of this event, Chelsea will unveil the fruits of the past year's worth of labor, including those most important new stadium plans and how we will go about building that all on the existing site.
While the exhibition isn't even open yet, the Daily Mail got exclusive early access and have been kind of enough to take several pictures, and those we can already marvel at right now. And what a vision it is!
Abramovich wants to turn Stamford Bridge into a cathedral of football with £500m expansion http://t.co/LCRqA2XGPO pic.twitter.com/ueKB0OWRCJ
— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) June 29, 2015
Be sure to check out the Mail's article — not a phrase heard very often! — for all the retro-futuristic glory set to be on display. Perhaps Football Clichés captured it best, as they often do.
Confirmed: Chelsea will be groundsharing with Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. pic.twitter.com/slCs8k3Iyq
— Football Clichés (@FootballCliches) June 29, 2015
While I'm sure more details will be revealed as people actually get to see this thing in person, for now we can glean that the expansion to 60,000 (from the current 42,000) will pretty much rebuild the entire stadium, aligning all the stands but keeping the cozy confines (instead of just a giant bowl). Hotels will be demolished (sorry, Ken Bates), railroads will be covered (including seats reserved for local residents!), and extra exit capacity will be added, including direct access to Fulham Broadway.
And if all that doesn't sound grand enough, the Mail even claim that this is just the first step of a plan to ensure an Abramovich dynasty in Chelsea ownership, with young Arkadiy already being groomed to succeed Roman! A perfect analog to an ever-changing, yet ever-present Stamford Bridge.