ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 Venue Development Director Donald Lockerbie says the Venue Development programme will be among the most significant legacies of next year’s Event.
Following a meeting, earlier this week, of the Design Team overseeing the building of 12 world-class stadiums to host tournament and warm-up matches, he expressed confidence that each venue will be ready on deadline and “will together be the finest assembly of stadiums for an ICC Cricket World Cup”.
“The experience and professionalism of our Design Team, and their tremendous dedication and commitment to getting the job done well, gives us great confidence that we will meet the necessary deadlines and stipulations which have been set,” said Lockerbie.
“The legacy of the ICC CWC 2007 Design Team will be around for many years to come both for the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and international cricket. The Caribbean is setting a new standard in the quality of international cricket grounds and will be one of the many successes of next year’s tournament.”
The Design Team comprises six engineering and architectural firms and is led by England-based Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) in partnership with Acuitas Caribbean in Trinidad. The four other well-established companies who are part of the Team are HOK SVE, Arup Associates, NLBA of Saint Lucia and C. Penzler Sports.
Regarding the meetings, held from last Monday to Wednesday in Jamaica, the Venue Development Director disclosed that these focused on several areas, including a review of overlay plans, design and requirement specifications for ticketing, catering and corporate hospitality, design reviews (including provisions for the disabled), safety requirements, the Opening Ceremony and the Central Procurement Programme (CPP).
“We spent a lot of time discussing the several overlay requirements which will transform each of these stadiums from their everyday appearance to venues that are ready for ICC CWC 2007. The Design Team is comprised of architects and engineers who have experience in undertaking this type of work at the highest level of world games such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cups,” Lockerbie said.
“Upgrading team, media, security and hospitality facilities to the standard ICC demands for its most prestigious tournament is very complex and, with 12 stadiums over nine Host Venues, our Design Team is being truly challenged.”
Venue Development Manager of the Jamaica Local Organising Committee (LOC) Chris Smith, who attended some of the meetings, termed such interaction with the Design Team “very enlightening”, adding the expertise is contributing immensely to ICC CWC 2007 progress. He also highlighted the significant savings which the CPP will garner for Host Venues and the Design Team’s role in assisting the region making the best choices where the CPP is concerned.
“ICC CWC 2007 is looking to procure a lot of the overlay items centrally so that individual territories can benefit from the volume of purchasing and that certainly will assist us in managing our budgets and keeping costs in line. The talks we have had here have been very enlightening in that regard and we’re looking forward to further discussions,” said the Jamaica LOC official.
Smith’s counterpart from Saint Lucia, Claudius Francis, also lauded the guidance being provided by the Design Team.
“There are a lot of persons in the Design Team who have had the experience of working with world games; experience which we in the Caribbean don’t have. Certainly their thinking has helped crystallise, in our minds, how things can and should operate to our benefit through the CPP. I have certainly learnt a lot about what we in the region can do to benefit financially,” said the Venue Development Manager of Saint Lucia’s LOC.
NOTE: The Design Team is led by the engineering firm Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) based in Manchester, England. SKM has worked on stadium engineering for several Olympic Games including Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004. Bob Laing, principal at SKM, was a member of the VAT (Venue Assessment Team) team and an author of the ICC CWC 2007 Bid Book. He works closely with bid project engineer Mahesh Parmar.
SKM has partnered with Acuitas Caribbean in Trinidad and together they are monitoring all stadium construction works and ensuring that venues for ICC CWC 2007 are on schedule. Acuitas principal Geoffrey Abdulah has spearheaded the monthly site inspections and writes the monthly report on stadium readiness for ICC review.
The Design Team also comprises four top sports-stadium architecture firms:
HOK SVE is the largest sports-stadium architecture practice in the world and, along with its ICC CWC 2007 commitments, is completing such notable stadiums as Wembley and Arsenal in London. They are architects at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium (Antigua), Sabina Park, Trelawny (both in Jamaica) and Brian Lara Stadium (Trinidad). HOK team members Jerry Anderson and Jeff Keas have proven experience in four Olympic Games, three FlFA World Cups and every Super Bowl since 1989.
Arup Associates of London – whose principals are Dipesh Patel and Kevin Owens – are the architects in charge of renovating Kensington Oval in Barbados where the ICC CWC 2007 Finals will be held. They are also design consultants for Queen’s Park in Grenada. Well known projects done by Arup include Manchester Stadium and work in that city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.
The Saint Lucia-based NLBA gained international recognition in the cricketing world with the design and development of Beausejour Stadium. For ICC CWC 2007, Claude Guillaume and his team have designed Warner Park in St. Kitts and are design consultants for Providence Stadium in Guyana.
The fourth firm is C. Penzler Sports which is a USA-based firm handling the design coordination for Trinidad’s Queen’s Park Oval and Arnos Vale in St. Vincent. CPS is also overseeing the overlay at Brian Lara Stadium. It’s led by noted baseball stadium architect Craig Penzler.
Editors note:
The official name of the tournament is the “ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007”. The following versions of the Event name are also acceptable:
ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 (preferred use)
ICC Cricket World Cup
ICC CWC 2007 (in prose or paragraph context only)
CWC 2007 (in prose or paragraph context only)
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