The hybrid planning application is for a hotel and music venue as well as a sports stadium to replace Luton Town’s 12,000-capacity Kenilworth Road ground.
The club is hoping to get planning permission before the end of the year, enabling construction to start on site in mid-2025 and complete in 2027.
Luton Town spent the 2023-24 season in the Premier League but was relegated back to the EFL Championship for this season. A new stadium is regarded as a prerequisite for the club to achieve its ambitions.
Gary Sweet, chief executive of Luton Town Football Club and 2020 Developments: “This important announcement is a pivotal moment for all supporters, residents and businesses of Luton. It also marks an important milestone for everyone who has worked tirelessly and diligently on the project over the last few months to shape it masterfully into the magnificent building we have presented to the planning officers.
“Once our lives changed 16 months ago with promotion at Wembley, concurrent to the gargantuan task of getting Kenilworth Road Premier League ready – which naturally dominated our workload for most of last year – we decided to reassemble a design team to take a fresh look at the whole Power Court project from foundations upwards. All in light of the new ambition, we wanted to embrace for our Club going forwards, demonstrated by the proposal to build to a 25,000 stadium capacity in one phase.
“We hand-picked and structured an elite design team of architects, engineers and technicians who have been working with us, crafting every floor and corner of our new stadium to a detailed stage such that it can now be submitted, publicly aired and presented as a well-prepared detailed design instruction for contractors.
“I personally want to take this opportunity to give a huge thanks to the entire team of specialist technicians who have submerged themselves into this colossal task so efficiently and to do so by breaking the mould in stadium design. They have pushed the boundaries beyond the norm in order to remain loyal to our original desired look and feel and have incorporated more unique cultural characteristics that will make this a familiar home for us all.”
That design team is led by Aecom and SISA (Specialists In Sports Architecture), supported by Klaska and Trivandi. The team also includes AKT II (structural engineer), Max Fordham (mechanical & electrical consultant), WSP (planning consultant), Atkins Realis (cost consultant & project manager), KMC (highways & transport) and Buro Happold (crowd and pedestrian analysis).
Aecom director Jon Leach said: “This application marks a significant milestone for Luton Town Football Club. The club has enjoyed historic success in recent seasons, and the new Power Court Stadium will reflect their ambitions both on the pitch and in being a key catalyst for the sustainable regeneration of the town and community.”
Michael Moran, chief operating officer of 2020 Developments, said: “Beginning with the original purchase of this site back in 2016, it has been a long process of concluding all the various associated land deals and legal consents, outline planning applications and then the various infrastructure challenges of moving a major sub-station and diverting the River Lea.
“Together with the recent confirmation of planning approval for our earthworks and site remediation efforts, our project team are now fully engaged on a construction timeline that would complete in 2027.”
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