Tom Wagner was speaking to BirminghamLive from St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park after a seismic day in Birmingham City’s bid to bring a Sports Quarter to Birmingham
16:36, 04 Jun 2025Updated 16:40, 04 Jun 2025
Birmingham City chairman Tom Wagner
Tom Wagner says the Sports Quarter will be open for business by 2030.
The new Birmingham City stadium is officially in the works after the Government pledged the cash to create a tramline to ferry people between the city centre and the Sports Quarter in east Birmingham.
More than £2.4 billion has been awarded to West Midlands mayor Richard Parker to spend on transport links and the tramline between Curzon Street Station, which will house HS2, and the Sports Quarter is at the top of his priorities list.
Wagner and his Knighthead cohorts will now fast-forward planning, and interviews have begun with potential architects for a development that will change the landscape of Birmingham city centre.
Speaking to BirminghamLive from St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park, Wagner said: “We’re in the process of interviewing architects to put together the design. The site plan is well advanced and, as that is happening, there are quite a few people working on the planning application that will be submitted in January.
“Hopefully it takes a year or less to get approval and the day we get approval is the day we start digging.”
Knighthead initially purchased the 48-acre site formerly known as Birmingham Wheels in April 2024, in addition to 12 acres of land adjacent to that site, but they have continued to hoover up land around the complex in the last 12 months.
Wagner estimates that the site will be more than 125 acres when all is said and done. For context, Manchester City’s Etihad Campus is 80 acres and St Andrew’s is 27 acres.
“It will be upwards of 125 acres when it’s done,” says Wagner. “There are some components that we don’t yet own that are necessary to ensure we can bring the full scope and scale.
“I think that we will get there. I know that we have the Government’s full support. The faster that we can work with the local property owners to make that happen the better it will be for everybody.”
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