1. FC Heidenheim: After promotion to the Bundesliga, “additional momentum” in stadium expansion

Too few seats

Bundesliga promoted 1. FC Heidenheim wants to expand its stadium from the current 15,000 to 25,000 seats from the summer of 2024. If the municipal council of the city with 50,000 inhabitants agrees to the change in the development plan for the club’s own Voith Arena and the approval and planning process goes “optimally”, construction work could begin in about a year, FCH CEO Holger Sanwald told the German press -Agency.

The capacity increase by 10,000 seats has been planned for some time. FCH would have wanted to do it that way even if it had belonged to the second division, said Sanwald. But “of course, the rise now brings in a certain additional dynamic and speed”. Because in the first Bundesliga season in the club’s history, Heidenheim can only play its home games on the Schlossberg with a special permit from the German Football League (DFL).

Although the stadium with a total capacity of 15,000 seats exactly meets the minimum requirements of the DFL for the first division, with only 4,500 seats it falls well short of the 8,000 required. In order for the number to rise to 14,500 seats, an additional upper tier is to be built above the previous grandstands. The FCH currently has the smallest stadium in the league, but is in eleventh place in terms of standing room, ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt, Werder Bremen and 1. FC Köln.

Sanwald has not yet been able to estimate how much the planned expansion will cost FCH as the owner of the stadium. “We will only take care of that when the change in the development plan has actually been approved by the municipal council,” he said. The city expects a decision by the end of the year or early 2024, a spokesman said.

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