East London’s new multi-use sports venue will be bigger than the O2 and will be a key venue for basketball, according to plans.
The aptly-named ‘London Colosseum’ will have a capacity of 25,000 people, making it 25% bigger than the 20,000-seat Greenwich venue – the capital’s largest at the moment.
The proposed Stratford mega-arena would also be bigger than Manchester’s 23,500-seater Co-op Live, currently the country’s largest.
The new arena is slated to be a potential home for the NBA’s London franchise, part of its planned but still unconfirmed European expansion.
Boxing, UFC, esports, and other international sports tournaments are also on the cards.
If plans go ahead, the stadium will sit within the Olympic Park in Stratford, next door to the London 2012 Olympic Stadium, now home to West Ham.
The stadium is planned to be part of a wider development, which will include a second site featuring two smaller 3,000-seat venues.
It will also include a tower with hotels, residential flats and community spaces, according to Ondrej Chybik, an architect from the Czech firm designing the site, Kristof + Chybik.
He said: ‘The London Colosseum’s bowl design allows the arena floor to effortlessly adapt to accommodate 18,000 and up to 25,000 spectators across diverse sporting and entertainment events.
‘By prioritising genuine multi-functionality, the arena and its surrounding public spaces are built to evolve, actively combating the inefficiency of traditional, single-use stadiums.
‘A key component of the proposal is a multifunctional tower, featuring a hotel, residences and community facilities, that brings together hospitality, residential, and community uses, extending the life of the site beyond event-based programming and embedding it within the everyday rhythm of the city.’
The project will encompass a sports and entertainment campus called the London Colosseum Academy, featuring a dedicated basketball school, the Peacock Boxing Gym & Academy, and an international esports training centre created in partnership with a leading London sports university.
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The London Lions basketball team (that’s Love Island star Ovie Soko’s side) has been searching for a larger venue within the M25 with the backing of Sadiq Khan, but it’s not clear whether this is linked to the Colosseum.
The planning process is still in the early stages, with designs only just made public.
No construction timeline has yet been released.