Imagine that instead of having Fenway Park surrounded by bars and businesses, it was in the middle of your neighborhood. Now, looking beyond how awesome it would be to live a baseball's throw away from Fenway, it's easy to imagine how dreadful it might have been to live there when major renovations were being done. Giant pieces of scaffolding blocking any sunlight, the constant decibel of construction noise outside your window — neither of those sound like too much fun.
This idea is very similar to what Liverpool parent company Fenway Sports Group is dealing with, and that, along with the prospect of little financial gain, is causing the Anfield development project to drag on.
"You can't build something right next to someone's house that blocks daylight, whether Liverpool FC like it or not. That is something that exists,'' Council leader Joe Anderson told the Liverpool Echo.
Anderson warned the club that it could take three years to clear all hurdles required to get the project moving.
The other option to modifying the existing Anfield, is to build a new stadium — one that is estimated to cost a little under $500 million —although it would offer little financial gain in the end.
"On the new stadium it's been about finding the right economic model," managing director Ian Ayre said while addressing press during the Asia tour in China. "What people don't think of a lot of the time is that we don't get 60,000 new seats when we build a stadium — we only get the difference between Anfield currently and whatever we build.
"We've looked at both options. Refurbishment could deliver an 60,000-plus seater, which would be great, but it comes with whole other challenges," Ayre added. "There has been a lot of frustration around that because there are lots of other people who have to come together or be a part of the process in order for us to deliver. That's been very challenging, particularly property acquisition and other areas of red tape, as most people would call it."
