Birmingham City follow Liverpool’s lead by making important St Andrew’s appointment following stadium setback

Birmingham City FC have confirmed that Mace - the international consultancy and construction company - have been appointed as construction manager of their St Andrew’s Master Redevelopment project.

The organisation, which was already a key member of the restructuring team, have stepped up their involvement following news that previous leads, Buckingham Group, filed for administration last month.

A statement from the club said that work on the Tilton and Kop stands recommenced at 9am this morning (Monday. September 11), with the project set to be completed before the end of November.

The aim is to see St Andrew’s boast a capacity that will be close to 30,000, with safe standing a feature of the work ongoing in the Lower Tilton.

That will accommodate 3,000 Blues fans, with an additional 3,600 supporters being housed in the new-look Kop Lower stand.

In 2020, sections of both stands were found to be unsafe, with games played in front of a reduced-capacity crowd since then.

Birmingham City chief executive Garry Cook said: ‘On behalf of all Blues fans I would like to thank the Mace team for stepping forward and helping us in our time of need.

‘By appointing Mace to the construction management role we have ensured we will be in a position to achieve our goal of having close to 30,000 Blues fans, in person at St. Andrew’s, supporting the team later this autumn.

‘Sub-contractors who have worked so hard to get us to this point will now have the opportunity to finish the work they have started. More than 50 per ceny of our sub-contractors live in and around Birmingham so it is important that we have been able to get them back to work so quickly.

‘I would like to thank the Buckingham Group team members for their commitment and passion to the Birmingham City project. They are professionals who find themselves in a challenging situation. Our hope is that they all find new and rewarding opportunities in the very near future.’

The Buckingham Group stopped trading, citing ‘rapidly escalating contract losses’ on August 17.

As well as St Andrew’s, the Buckinghamshire-based construction company had been working on the new-look Anfield Road stand at Liverpool FC.

Last week, the Reds appointed Rayner Rowen Construction, along with a number of other contractors, to resume the final works for their project.

Birmingham’s next home game is against QPR on Friday, September 22.

If work is successfully completed on time, then the new-look St Andrew’s will be ready for Rotherham’s Championship visit on Saturday, December 2.