Construction of a new arena on the site of the former stadium named after S. M. Kirov was launched in 2007. According to the project, it should be a purely football stadium without running tracks, accommodating almost 70 thousand spectators. The 8-storey building, 57 meters high, is planned to be covered with a dome with a sliding roof with a diameter of 286 meters. The field itself, with an area of almost 10 thousand m² with a natural lawn, will have a unique retractable design.
The construction of this sports arena in the western part of Krestovsky Island was initially given two years, and the amount of investment was estimated at 6, 7 billion rubles. However, after more than half of the allotted time, the completion of construction was still very far away and the customer - the Construction Committee of the city of St. Petersburg - terminated the contract with the contractor - the Avanta company.
To continue construction was entrusted to the corporation "Transstroy", which for 13 billion rubles. was supposed to be completed by the end of 2010. But this deadline was not met, moreover, the project was changed, and part of the structures had to be dismantled. As a result, Glavgosekpertiza has determined a new construction estimate - 33.1 billion rubles. In 2011, some new requirements of the customer appeared, which the director of ZAO Transstroy began to refer to, explaining why the construction was suspended. He named December 2013 as the end date of the long-term construction. However, in September 2012, after the second visit to the construction site by Dmitry Medvedev, who during this time managed to be both president and prime minister, a new date became known - the end of 2014.
Meanwhile, the customer is talking about another change of contractor, the baton from which, most likely, some foreign company will take over. Gazprom, which is the general sponsor of the Zenit football club and partially finances the construction of the arena, has named possible successors to Transstroy. The list includes German companies Hochtief and Alpine, Swedish Skanska, Japanese Kajima, American Turner and French Vinci. Each of them has sufficient experience in the construction of such sports facilities.
There is no certainty that the announced completion date will be met, but 2018 can be considered the deadline. It is scheduled to host the FIFA World Cup in Russia, and St. Petersburg has been named one of the cities in which the matches of the world's main football forum will be held.
