PAOK Thessaloniki's football club, together with representatives of construction firm Salfo and stadium design specialist Populous, presented plans on Thursday for a new Toumba stadium to replace the club's current home in Thessaloniki, Greece. The new ground will seat between 34,000 and 35,000 spectators.
The most striking element of the design is a north stand holding 8,700 seats, described by architects as one of the central features of the project. It is modelled on similarly large single stands found at major European stadiums, aimed at creating one unified and highly vocal block of support. The stand will sit 24 metres closer to the pitch and 20 metres higher than the current one.
The stadium is expected to be finished 40 months after construction begins, which organisers said they hoped would start in the summer of 2027, putting completion in 2030. Organisers also made clear the existing Toumba stadium will not be demolished until the main building permit has been secured.
Seating Categories and Capacity
The new stadium's seating will be split into 16 different categories. Plans call for 360 suite seats, 150 seats reserved for journalists, and a stand for organised supporters holding 5,400 seats in its upper tier and 3,300 in its lower tier.
There will also be a Family Deck with 500 seats, while the general sale category accounts for 15,000 seats.
Away supporters will get about 7% of total capacity, roughly 1,500 seats. The project also includes more than 400 parking spaces for stadium use and a further 600 commercial parking spaces.
What PAOK and Salfo Executives Said
Salfo chief executive Panagiotis Toumpanakis said the company was proud to have delivered projects to the city such as the Thessaloniki Metro. He said Salfo's experience in sports facilities included two stadiums built in Qatar for the World Cup, stadiums in Saudi Arabia, the renovation of the SEF arena, Panathinaikos's new stadium and the renovation of the OAKA complex in Athens.
Toumpanakis said he was pleased the project involved PAOK's fanbase and a historic club, and that it amounted to a full regeneration of the Toumba area. He called it a challenging project and said Salfo had assembled a strong team of international and Greek offices to ensure studies were completed on time and to a high standard, with the aim of making it the most modern stadium in Greece and one of the best in Europe. He said the target was to submit the building permit application in December.
PAOK representative Dimitris Moutsakis said the design put emphasis on what he called the Fan Wall, a single, powerful stand of almost 10,000 seats that he described as the soul of the new stadium, which he referred to as the Nest of the Two-Headed Eagle. He said the team had needed to simplify aspects of the build to reduce disruption, and that every phase of the plan had already passed the necessary pre-approvals covering archaeology, urban planning and other relevant authorities.
Moutsakis said a masterplan had been developed and that a study of traffic and environmental impacts was under way, alongside a bioclimatic approach that incorporated green elements into the design. He said the next key step was submitting the building permit application by the end of the year, with construction due to start in the summer of 2027, and he promised a surprise announcement soon regarding the stadium's facades.
Asked about the project's co-financing model, the PAOK representative said Thursday's presentation had been purely technical and that a separate presentation from another team of partners would address financing very soon. On the approval timeline, he estimated the permit would be approved within three months of submission, with the application due to be filed by the end of 2026.
Asked whether he would be satisfied if the stadium were completed within 40 months, he said that, based on current information, he would be, though the actual build time could run to 39 or 41 months. On demolition, he repeated that it would not go ahead without the permit in hand. On parking, he said underground spaces were planned, possibly just over 300 including a second parking area near the IKA site, and that a presentation of the stadium's exterior space would follow within about a month.
Construction Approach Behind the 'Nest'
Panos Papanastasis of Buro Happold, the London-based engineering firm, presented the construction logic behind the project. Buro Happold has worked on some of the world's most prominent modern stadiums, including the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Everton's new stadium.
The presentation set out, for the first time, an eight-stage construction sequence. Work would begin with deep excavation, foundation work and underground infrastructure, before moving on to the main structural cores and the single bowl of the stands.
The most demanding part of the build concerns the large steel roof. The main trusses are expected to be assembled first at ground level on temporary supports, where welds, connections and geometry can be checked, before being lifted into their final position. Secondary steel roof structures would follow, with a final stage covering cladding, drainage, lighting, the sound system and maintenance walkways. Once the temporary supports are removed, final geometric and structural checks would take place.
The images shown depicted a stadium enclosed around its perimeter, with a large roof covering the stands but leaving the space above the pitch open. Organisers stressed this represented the structural and construction philosophy of the design rather than the final external appearance of the stadium, which PAOK said would be unveiled separately in due course.
Geotechnical Surveys and Archaeology Findings
Nikos Tsatsos, a civil and geotechnical engineer with the firm Geognosi, said 21 geotechnical boreholes had been carried out around the existing stadium and in the wider area. The surveys were conducted under permit and under the supervision of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki.
Boreholes in the main project area, referred to as Area 1, have been completed, while those in Area 2, linked to underground works and parking, are still under way and are expected to finish within September. Tsatsos described the geotechnical findings in the main area as satisfactory, which he said was significant given that the design calls for excavation of 8 to 10 metres for the foundations.
He added that checks carried out so far had produced no indications of antiquities in the surveyed area, a factor he said carries particular weight for the timeline of such a large construction project.
Alexandra Peitsi, a civil engineer and technical director at Consortis, said the relevant file and application had already been submitted to the Thessaloniki urban planning authority and that the preliminary review had been completed successfully.
