Do we need a bigger stadium in Kenya like China’s Bird’s Nest?

By Collins Kowuor

For your information, the main stadiums in Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, and Eldoret have sitting capacity of 5,000 persons, 10,000, persons, 8,200 persons and 10,000 persons respectively

The week has been momentous and memorable. Particularly the Tuesday Ninth of April this year when our new President His Excellency Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta was inaugurated. Congratulations to the new team that has now been officially entrusted with the mandate to steer our beautiful country to higher heights.

The subject of today’s column springs from the venue of the inauguration. I remember that attendees of the inauguration were supposed to be seated by 10am for the function. At about 10.15am, my good friend Sammy Lui announced that the stadium had been filled to capacity of 60,000 persons. Consequently, no more people were to be allowed in but to be directed to the gymnasium, which could hold another 5,000 persons.

The rest were to watch the proceedings from the giant screens. Given the number of people who voted in the concluded elections, and assuming that “no guests from outside Kenya” were invited, the percentage of attendees were no more than about 0.5 per cent of those who voted. I agree that digitally, more caught the proceedings on television, live streams, Google hang-out and radios.

When Sammy made the announcement, my mind drifted to Bird’s Nest, the biggest stadium in China, located in Beijing. Do we need such? Is it viable? What are other uses of stadiums? Stadiums fall in what category of land? These questions flooded my mind like River Nyando that has now burst its banks. Questions continued, what did the harmonised ‘Jubilee Manifesto’ inscribed for transforming Kenya between 2013 and 2017 say about stadiums? This area was captured under the first pillar of enhancing Umoja and with particular focus on arts, sports and culture. The opportunities were about in this area such as hosting major sporting events such as the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019 and the 2019 World Athletics championships.

This was to be achieved by supporting growth of sports by helping to provide sporting facilities. The main plans were to build five new national sports stadiums in Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret and Garissa, while upgrading existing sporting facilities at the county level to accommodate swimming, tennis, basketball and rugby.

For your information, the main stadiums in Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, and Eldoret have sitting capacity of 5,000 persons, 10,000 persons, 8,200 persons and 10,000 persons respectively. However, I would like to look at stadiums from the prism of productive land use.

This is one of the principles of land management espoused in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. Let’s first go back to Bird’s Nest. The stadium was designed for use in 2008 Olympics and Paralympics. It has a capacity of 80,000 persons but also had 11,000 temporary seats during the Olympics. This means that it can be expanded to accommodate a total of 91,000 persons with 140 executive suits.  They plan to build a shopping mall and hotel proximal to it and with rooms overlooking it to increase use of the stadium.

 For your information, we have a hotel within Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, with a bed capacity of 108 and 400-seater multi-purpose ballroom among other facilities.

The main issue about Bird’s Nest is that it is a tourist attraction facility due to its design.

 It looks like a bird’s nest. Do we have tourists coming to see Kasarani, the stadium? It is reported that Bird’s Nest attracts about 30,000 tourists a day. The admission charge to view the stadium is approximately Sh500. It has recently been used as a snow theme park.

We have such at Panari Hotel. It is reported that it costs about Sh765 million to maintain the stadium. It, therefore, means that in order to enhance productivity of the stadiums and by extension the land utilised is to consider the functions of the stadiums.

The maintenance cost of the stadiums also needs to be considered. Can the designs be tourist attraction? Can they be flexible for extension as need arises? Creative use of the space within the stadium is critical as one considers the harmonious blend with the neighborhood.

The writer is the Chairman of the Institution of Surveyors of Kenya