LÚSIS COMMENTS ⟩ Why is Lucavsala the stupidest place to build a stadium?

Haters, of course, object, shouting that the national football team is useless to us and that football in general is weak in the country, but no one is interested in this. First of all, football is undeniably the most popular sport in the world. Secondly, football is the only thing that needs a stadium as much as hockey is the only thing that needs Arena Riga.

Accordingly, the stadium has a huge potential for hosting world-class concerts and events. Not to mention the fact that it could also be used to stage big dance performances of the Song and Dance festival. In a word, there are a lot of pluses and we simply need that stadium. Probably even more than all kinds of concert halls and more.

And then suddenly the news appears that the Riga City Council has given the Latvian Football Federation (LFF) free use of a ten-hectare plot of land for the construction of a national football stadium in Lucavsala for five years. “Hooray! Well, finally!”, right? No. The stadium is planned to be built in Lucavsala.

In all seriousness – I have a feeling that this time the employees of the Riga City Council got together and played the bingo of the worst place for the stadium:

– Access as difficult as possible;

– It is possible to access only from certain points, not from all sides;

– Available only from one public transport stop;

– There is no meaningful pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure;

– There is no possibility of convenient arrival or departure;

– There is already a lack of places to park private cars;

– It is far enough from the center of Riga that only the residents of Zolitude consider it as the center;

– The territory has potential risks of flooding in the future;

– Extremely inconvenient access for non-Riga residents.