Contractors express interest in Qatar stadium

22 March 2015

Al-Rayyan stadium will have 40,000 seats

  • Contractors express interest in building Al-Rayyan stadium
  • Aecom is project manager, Ramboll is design consultant
  • Firms are bidding for Al-Wakrah and Al-Bayt stadiums

Construction companies have submitted expressions of interest to Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy for the contract to build the Al-Rayyan stadium in the country.

The stadium will seat about 40,000 people during the football World Cup in 2022. Following the tournament, the stadium’s modular top tier will be disassembled and used to build football facilities in developing countries that lack sporting infrastructure, in coordination with football’s governing body, Fifa.

US-based Aecom was appointed as project manager and Denmark’s Ramboll as design consultant for the project in 2014.

The Supreme Committee and the Aspire Zone Foundation received bids from contractors on 27 January for work on the Al-Bayt stadium in Al-Khor.

The project is divided into three main construction packages. The largest involves building a 60,000-seat stadium for the football tournament. The others include the construction of a retail precinct and a utilities centre. Completion of the scheme is expected in 2018.

The stadium will be modular and once the World Cup is over, the upper tiers will be removed, leaving 32,000 seats. The design of the stadium and its name come from Bayt al-Shaar, which is a black and white tent traditionally used by the Qatari people.

Qatar is also tendering the Al-Wakrah stadium, which will have the capacity to seat 45,000 people during the tournament. The original plans for the stadium involve the top tiers of the structure being modular and, following the tournament, the capacity of the stadium being reduced to 20,000 people, with 25,000 seats removed. The plan is for these seats to be donated and reconstructed in developing countries.

The UK’s Foster+Partners was appointed to design the flagship Lusail stadium in early March.

Foster+Partners will work on the 80,000-seat stadium with architect Populous and UK-based engineering consultant Arup. Qatar’s World Cup organising committee invited architects to submit designs for the stadium last year. The design competition replaced an earlier tender that the committee decided to scrap because the proposals did not adequately reflect Qatari design and culture.

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