Construction for the new football stadium in the Athens neighbourhood of Votanikos to house Panathinaikos FC is finally becoming a reality, with construction crews beginning preliminary works to prepare the site where the new football arena is to be built on Thursday.
The crews will start by the "clearing" the plot where the new football field will be located, in order not to lose another day. Once the municipal authority's contract with the TERNA-AKTOR-Mytilineos joint venture is signed at the end of May, the construction of the new stadium can then begin immediately.
The construction site will be visited by the Ministers Giorgos Gerapetritis (Minister of State), Thodoros Skylakakis (Alternate Finance Minister), Adonis Georgiadis (Minister of Development and Investments), the President of Panathinaikos FC, Yiannis Alafouzos, the President of Panathinaikos, Panagiotis Malakates, and the CEO of Alpha Bank, Vassilis Psaltis, who will be informed in detail by the Mayor of Athens, Costas Bakoyannis, about the work.
After the end of the inspection, there will be statements by Bakoyannis, who will analyse all the next steps for the implementation of the entire project of the "Double Redevelopment", the largest intervention in post-war Athens.
The new Panathinaikos Stadium will be a multi-use sports complex that will host all departments of the Panathinaikos sports club set.
The complex will include the football stadium (seating 39,000), a volleyball, handball and basketball stadium (3.100), swimming pool (500), gymnastic facilities and more.
The football stadium was to be ready for the 100 years of the club in 2008, with the rest of the complex completed by 2011.
By October 2013 and due to the club's and the country's financial troubles, the construction of the Votanikos Arena stopped and consequently the plans for the demolition of the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium were cancelled.
In 2020, Bakoyannis announced that the project was going to start building and last for 3 years. The most significant part of the agreement between Panathinaikos & Municipality of Athens was the fact that the team had to offer Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium in exchange of its new Stadium.
After the construction of the arenas, Panathinaikos will be the owner of the whole Votanikos Sport Complex for 100 years. The new football, basketball, volleyball arenas and all the facilities, will be ready at the start of 2026.
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