Kildare GAA chairperson Mick Gorman says the redevelopment of St Conleth's Park in Newbridge has had to endure several challenges and obstacles but work on the €17.5m facelift will finally begin this month.
Contracts were signed on the long-awaited development at the Osprey Hotel in Naas on Thursday night.
Construction will commence on Monday, 27 March after Kildare's final Allianz Football League game with Meath and will continue for a period of 18 months.
This means that the ground will be completely closed during construction and reopening is anticipated in time for the county finals of 2024.
New venues will have to be found for club championship games and alternative arrangements made for Kildare’s 2024 home league fixtures.
Speaking to RTE Sport, chairman Mick Gorman said the county had to fight hard to reach this point.
The re-development was originally costed at around €10.5m in 2019 but due to rising costs the project was been delayed until the necessary finances were all in place to proceed.
"Covid definitely impacted on the finances of everyone, there were serious challenges with that," he said.
"Inflation, the cost of steel, all of that had a huge bearing on this project.
"But we have been running at a surplus in the county board and we were able to put €2m aside into the redevelopment fund because of that.
"We also put in €2m in borrowings. We received a grant from the Government funding of €4.875m through the Large Scale Sports Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) grant of €4.875m."
Kildare also received funding from the Government’s IIP (Immigrant Investor Programme worth €4m.
Aside from support from the Government’s Large Scale Sports Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) and IIP scheme, the GAA’s Central Council and Leinster Council are also backing the project.
The balance of the funding is being provided by Kildare GAA through its own resources and borrowings from Bank of Ireland.
"We are in a good place now. We feel we have the finance in place and a lot of things have settled down," Gorman added.
"We put this to tender 12 months ago and inflation was running rampant. We have spent the year bridging the gap to find the money we needed and we will now close at the end of the month for 18 months, hoping to open for our county finals in 2024.
"The overall cost of this, what we have budgeted for, is circa €17.5m. A lot of professional fees have to be added in so we are budgeting for that figure."
The main contract (€12.9m plus VAT) has been agreed with the Elliott Group for reconstruction.
After construction, the stadium will be transformed into a modern 15,000 capacity venue.
The existing stand and dressing rooms will be pulled down and replaced by a new entrance plaza and a new 3,000-seater stand.
New dressing rooms, officials' changing rooms, a Club Kildare Lounge, multi-purpose rooms and shops will also be installed.
A total pitch redevelopment will also take place, as will an extension/widening of dimensions to 145m x 85m. State of the art floodlighting will also be provided.
Gorman says the people of Kildare and Kildare GAA need and deserve this new development.
"We have fallen behind the Porlaoises and Tullamores of this world in terms of stadiums," he said.
"We badly need to do this. Our facilities are not up to what intercounty grounds should be.
"This will be a major step forward for Kildare GAA and also for the town of Newbridge."
At the moment the county’s hurlers are setting quite the tempo in Division 2A, whilst the footballers have some huge games coming up to retain their Division 2 status.
But off the field Kildare's GAA's financial transformation in the past 10 years has been impressive.
Last year’s annual convention reported a surplus of almost €1.1m. This came a decade after the county needed advance payments of €300k from Croke Park to help them pay off creditors owed around €200k.
A debt of €570,000 loomed at that time. But the transformation has been remarkable.
Gate receipts have risen by 10-15%, Club Kildare is up by €160,000 and this has all helped finally ensure the redevelopment of St Conleth’s Park.
Gorman says their progress on that front is down to more people coming on board to help.
"When we were in financial difficulties, the realisation dawned that we had to get our house in order. There were too few carrying too big a load.
"From there more people got involved, the workload was spread, we got some more quality people in. It’s about the quality of people you can get around you. One person can never push the bus better than a team of 12 or 14 people pushing the bus."
