Birmingham City reaction given to new Powerhouse Stadium reveal - 'I can't wait' | OneFootball

Birmingham City's owners are nothing if not ambitious, with plans for a new stadium, and FLW's Blues fan pundit is excited for what's to come.

Birmingham City have released fresh pictures of their new Powerhouse Stadium, and Bluenoses cannot wait for work to get started on it.

Birmingham City ended the 2025-26 season with reasons to be cheerful.

Hopes of a second successive promotion into the Premier League ended up coming to nothing, but a run of three wins and two draws from their final five games of the season lifted the Blues to 10th place in the Championship, a nice little bit of forward momentum ahead of the summer break.

But the most important news from St Andrew's this season has not concerned anything that's happened on the pitch. In November, the club unveiled plans for a new, 62,000-capacity stadium, provisionally named the Powerhouse Stadium, which they plan to have open for 2030, and they have followed this up with further pictures confirming what it will look like once completed.

"I'm massively excited for it" - excitement starts to build in Birmingham as fresh images of the Powerhouse Stadium land

The fresh pictures of the new Birmingham City stadium have caused FLW to speak to our Birmingham City fan pundit Jason Moore about his feelings on the project, and Jason is dismissive of those who've criticised the plans. He said: I don't know how it can't not excite people. People are saying it's like a soulless bowl, it's nothing like a bowl.

"It's relevant to what Birmingham is and our history, so I'm massively excited for it and everything it's going to bring for us."

​​​​​​And although moving into a new stadium will bring massive rewards for the Blues, Jason is as excited by what the Powerhouse Stadium could do for the city of Birmingham itself.

Jason continued: "Even just for the city of Birmingham, the number of jobs it will bring to a poor part of the city. It'll bring a load of jobs and it's going to show Birmingham in a better light because, let's be honest, the narrative is that Birmingham is not a very attractive place, and I can probably agree with this in certain places, especially where the stadium's going to go and where the Blues are currently located, it's not great."

The plans are set to be presented to Birmingham City Council in March 2027, with an anticipated completion date of 2030, and Jason cannot wait for approval to be given and for work to start on it: "But a stadium like this and everything that's going to be around it can only build up the city, so I can't wait for it. Roll on for when they get those spades in the ground and start digging."

The Powerhouse Stadium will be Birmingham City's third permanent home in 151 years

Once completed, the Powerhouse Stadium will be the third permanent home that Birmingham City have had in their 151-year existence. Formed as Small Heath Alliance in 1875, they played at a fenced-off field on Labybrook Road for the first couple of years of their existence, before moving into a permanent ground of their own at Muntz Street in 1877.

But thirty years later, they were on their way again. Muntz Street had become too small for the club, as could be seen when they played Aston Villa in a League match in February 1905. A reported attendance of 35,000 turned out for the match, which Villa won 3-0, but contemporary reports suggested that many thousands were locked out and that a crush might only have been narrowly avoided.

Part of the problem was that Muntz Street was too small, being hemmed in on all four sides by housing. The other part was the landlords. The 21-year lease they'd signed was coming to an end, and not only would the owners not sell the freehold for the site to the club, but they wouldn't expand the size of it either. Birmingham played their last match there on the 22nd December 1906 and their first at St Andrew's four days later. The crowd for their final match at Muntz Street was 6,000. For their opening match at St Andrew's, it was over 30,000.

120 years on, it's time to move on again. St Andrew's has been showing its age in recent years. Stands have had to be closed for remedial work, and while the current capacity of 29,409 is adequate for their current needs, it would put a cap on the club's ambitions in the event that they do get back into the Premier League.

These plans are certainly ambitious. The 62,000 capacity of the Powerhouse Stadium will only be 4,000 short of the club's record attendance at St Andrew's, and that was set more than 90 years ago. But this project also represents an act of faith in both the club and the city on the part of their owners. They're expected to invest up to £3 billion into the project, and they'll be expecting the team to deliver Premier League football by the time they move in.

There may be a question over whether the Blues will be able to fill a stadium of this size, and they're not without justification. Birmingham City's highest-ever average home attendance for a season was the 38,453 that they managed in the 1948-49 season. But it's clear that the owners of the club are building a very different future for the club than the past that they've had. And with the promise of the Powerhouse Stadium bringing thousands of jobs to the city, it will have a big effect on Birmingham itself, as well as the football club who move in there.