Dundee's new stadium plans: John Nelms on target date, rising costs, Archibald Leitch nod and Dens Park-aspirin connection

Dundee release new ‘concept image’ of long-proposed new stadium featuring nod to historic main stand at current home Dens Park

Dundee are confident that revised plans drawn up for a long proposed new stadium at Camperdown Park means the time is drawing near when a staple pub quiz question – name the closest grounds in British football – will no longer have relevance to the City of Discovery.

As a sop to supporters who fear an erosion of identity in the event of leaving Dens Park, the club’s home since 1899, among the improvements to the initial design is a kink in the main stand that pays homage to the current grand stand. The existing structure is one of the last few remaining examples of renowned stadium designer Archibald Leitch’s handiwork and dates to 1921. It sports a unique chevron shape designed to follow the contours of the road outside. It is of course a famous stretch of road. Across the street, little more than 200 yards away, lies another stadium, Dundee United’s Tannadice Park.

How much longer this arrangement will exist remains to be seen. Dundee managing director John Nelms held a rare press conference on Friday as the club released a new “stadium development concept image” at the club’s training base at the Gardyne sports complex. As well as the Archibald Leitch tribute, one glaring alteration is the position of the stadium. It now runs from east to west as opposed to north to south. There is also a "1000-plus multi-use event space" at the back of the north-facing main stand.

Dundee managing director John Nelms with a render of Dundee’s Camperdown Stadium.

Although more eye-catching and complex-looking than the original design from over a year ago, Nelms maintains that the target date for playing football at the new stadium remains the same – summer 2025. Moreover, once the last ball is kicked at Dens Park, the next one kicked by the team will be at the new, as yet unnamed, ground. It was previously expected that Dundee would need to share another team’s stadium while work on the new stadium continued and Dens Park was sold to developers.

The fact that the historic ground is now in the hands of the club – or at least Nelms and Texas-based owner Tim Keyes – allows for more flexibility. Dark Blue Property Holdings, a Keyes-Nelms helmed company set up to buy the land for the new stadium as long ago as 2016, purchased Dens Park back from former Dundee United director John Bennett earlier this year. If it seems as though things are falling into place some significant sticking points remain, including rising construction prices that mean the original cost estimated at £15-18 million could shoot up by at least £10m for the 12,500-capacity stadium (initial plans had room for 15,000). Nelms stressed that this outlay – funding is in place “in principle” he claimed – should be viewed in the context of the £700,000 per annum they are spending on maintaining Dens Park.

"We have been at Dens Park since 1899," he said. "It has been brought to my attention that aspirin was invented in 1899. First use of the word automobile was 1899. Queen Victoria was the reigning monarch in 1899. We have come a long way. All we can do at Dens Park is host football matches. We don’t have the ability to hold concerts. I am not sure the electrical system would hold up for us to plug anything else into the building."

Doubts remain over whether lights will ever be switched on at the new stadium. One obvious obstacle is that planning permission has not yet been granted. Given the proposed ground’s proximity to the Kingsway bypass, vehicular access has long been an issue. “We have been working with Transport Scotland for a long, long time,” said Nelms. “As part of our planning we had to show six different options of how we ingress and egress this site. We have been through over and over how we get in and out this site. We now feel we are comfortable.”

Dundee have been playing football at Dens Park since 1899.

Keyes and Nelms will lodge a Planning Permission in Principle (PPiP) application in the new year. Included in the proposal is a 120-room hotel, a residential housing development while a crematorium, a main feature of the original plans, remains part of the campus. Nelms is hopeful that something concrete can be announced in “the next four or five months” with much of the work, including an Environmental Impact Study, having already been completed. “We call it Planning in Principle on steroids,” he said. “It is well beyond what you would normally do for a PPiP.”

Failure is not being entertained. There is no Plan B. “We've put so much effort into this,” he stressed. “We have over a million pounds worth of studies into this. This is the main focus just now, if anyone wants to hypothesise about what could and can't happen then I'll fight tooth and nail because A, we think it should happen and B, we're heavily invested in it.”

As for Dens Park, the wrecking ball cable twitches once more. A criticism made of the club’s current regime is that they appeared too blasé about the emotional impact of leaving a much-loved ground that has staged so many significant events, including a European Cup semi-final. The same floodlights – if not bulbs – that illuminated such past greats as Alan Gilzean and Charlie Cooke will shine down as Dundee host Aberdeen this weekend.

The main stand ‘kink’ will be reproduced in the new stadium, although only in the outward-facing façade. Unlike presently at Dens, those sitting in the centre of the stand will not be further away from the pitch than those at either ends. "It is a nod to the heritage, to the Archibald Leitch stand at Dens Park,” said Nelms. “We're not using that design pitch-side – there everything will be tight, as close to the pitch as possible.

“It's good that we can do that. It's a nod to Dens Park when everything else is ultra-modern."