The man who designed Everton's new £760m home on retaining the 'magic of Goodison' and why he wants to rebuild Newcastle's St James' Park
Wherever Dan Meis walked at Everton‘s new home at Bramley-Moore Dock on Sunday there was a fan waiting for a selfie or handshake.
Meis is the man who designed the gleaming £760m stadium by the river, a six-year journey that involved immersing himself in the unique culture of the city and club while enduring panicked, sleepless nights about a vision that begun with “sketches on a napkin”.
That he has attained celebrity status among the Everton fanbase – and the reception was the same as he strolled around Liverpool city centre on Saturday night – tells us two things: firstly, that the stadium’s retro-modern design has hit the mark with the people who matter most; and secondly that even in a football world dominated by Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), balance sheets and billionaires, nothing is more important to supporters than the ground their team plays at.
Meis’ enduring legacy at Everton, he hopes, is that he got that. He is a Coloradoan whose previous design work mostly focused around vast NFL stadiums or indoor arenas for basketball or ice hockey. But on his first visit to Goodison Park – where he speaks fondly of “noticing fans sitting behind a column, their view obstructed” – he was instantly transfixed by the culture of English football. Meis realised at that point that the project demanded a design that reflected Evertonian DNA, which made the job that much more intimidating.
“The thing that really hit me the very first time I went to Goodison is that it was this cauldron,” he says of his first visit, nearly nine years ago.
“You were right on top on the pitch and sure there were seats with columns in your eyesight but it was a proper English football stadium. That’s hard to recreate, it was very intimidating for me because the last thing I wanted to do – and I’ve seen that with other new buildings – is lose some of that magic and mystery.
“In some ways [being American] was to my advantage because I dove deep in the history of Goodison and Liverpool and for me it wasn’t about a big, shiny new building it was ‘How do we take the magic of Goodison and move it to a new site’?
“It helped that direction from the club was clear early on. We’re not Wembley or Tottenham for that matter. This is about a proper football stadium. Of course you need it to be commercially viable and help the club grow and all the things you need in a new building but to do that without losing that right on top of the pitch feel and the intimidation was part of it.”
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 17: The setting sun is reflected at Bramley Moore Dock for a test match at the new home of Everton Football Club on February 17, 2025 in Liverpool, England. The friendly match between the Everton Under-18s and the Wigan Athletic Under-18s marks the first test event for Everton's new stadium at??Bramley-Moore Dock??in Liverpool, with an expected 10,000 supporters in attendance. The stadium was completed late last year, and the first competitive fixture is scheduled to take place in August. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Dan Meis designed Everton’s gleaming new stadium (Photo: Getty)
It is a message that should resonate with the Premier League‘s multinational owners as many of them ponder stadium moves, motivated – partly – by the need to jack up revenue in an era where every penny counts.
Among the clubs looking to follow in Everton’s footsteps are Manchester United (Meis drew up plans for the Glazer family before the current iteration of the Old Trafford revamp), Newcastle United and Chelsea, where leaving Stamford Bridge has been on the agenda for nearly a decade and Todd Boehly has recently raised the possibility of moving to a multi-sport stadium at Earl’s Court.
“Here’s what I hope,” Meis says. “I hope that other clubs who are thinking of new buildings will take heart at what we’ve done here, which is not to try and do some giant, over-the-top thing which could be anywhere in the world but we’re going to put it in the middle of Manchester.
“This building was about Liverpool, about Merseyside, about the brick of the buildings and that was really important to us. I think English football, if they all become big, shiny objects, we will lose something that is unique to English football and we tried to respect that very much because of Goodison.
“So I’m hoping this will open the door to other clubs down the road.”
Will Meis get the chance to carry out one of those projects? He sincerely hopes so. Part of the joy of doing Everton has been the investment of the supporters, who he regularly interacts with on social media. He says the club has been forward-thinking in allowing that free exchange of ideas, and that fan views on X/Twitter and Instagram have “shaped our thinking”.
Meis, for example, is fascinated by the dilemma at Newcastle, where a move from St James’ Park now looks likely. He says he would “absolutely” love to be involved in any design work for the Magpies.
“There’s a lot of hand-wringing about whether they try to renovate it or build a new building. I think that’s an ambitious ownership and I personally think they will end up with a new stadium,” he says.
“It’s a difficult building to renovate and to really make state of the art. I hope that they learn from some of the new things that have been done.
“Now we have a few new buildings in the UK and what’s interesting is that this (Everton) is going to be a bookend versus what Man United has just shown so clubs like Newcastle and Chelsea will have the opportunity to learn lessons and take good from what they’re seeing.”
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 17: In this aerial view fans arrive for the first ever game, a test match, at Bramley Moore Dock, the new home of Everton Football Club on February 17, 2025 in Liverpool, England. The friendly match between the Everton Under-18s and the Wigan Athletic Under-18s marks the first test event for Everton's new stadium at??Bramley-Moore Dock??in Liverpool, with an expected 10,000 supporters in attendance. The stadium was completed late last year, and the first competitive fixture is scheduled to take place in August. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
The first competitive game at Everton’s new stadium will come in August (Photo: Getty)
He is diplomatic about the sweeping designs for a new 100,000-seater stadium Manchester United unveiled a fortnight ago.
“There’s obviously a lot of ambition there,” he says.
“I’m a huge fan of Norman Foster, he’s been a hero of mine forever and I wish them well but I guess [Bramley-Moore Dock] shows what I think about English football and English football stadiums more than anything.
“It’s not going to be right for everyone but I think there’s something that’s right for everyone.”
And, with its intimate feel, nods to the Archibald Leach design of Goodison Park alongside its banked 14,000-seater south terrace, Everton’s new stadium does feel right for them, even if the project has been more challenging than Meis ever thought it would be.
To deliver it through Covid, the Ukraine war and a period of financial and ownership instability at Everton has been tough. At times Meis admits he did doubt it would see the light of day and he credits the late Bill Kenwright, the club’s former chairman and “lightning rod for criticism”, for his ambition and commitment to the stadium task.
“It is not for the faint-hearted,” he admits. To prove the point Meis has regularly gone into battle over the stadium’s capacity, which is 52,888. Some fans argued it is too small, and they should have aimed for closer to 60,000.
“I’ve gone back and forth on social media for years on this issue,” he says. “There’s obviously a commercial aspect to it. People forget that if you add 5,000 seats they’re the most expensive seats.
“It not only adds the cost of the seats, it’s wider concourses, it’s things to support it. It was about right-sizing the building and making sure it’s always full, that was really important.
“The fear that ‘We could have had 5 or 10,000 more seats…’ that will go away when people see how incredibly noisy and intimidating it is. It will feel big, certainly compared to Goodison.”
Sunday was the second of three test events. The first competitive game in the stadium will come in August, when Meis will be back to witness the realisation of his vision.
“I can’t wait for that, and it’s great to see the club on a better footing. Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief on that because it could have been bad,” he says.
“They could have picked sites that were easier and far, far less expensive but for all of the ups and downs I think the city and region will benefit from this.”
Ambition and history: it is not a bad place to start for any club looking to make a success of a stadium reset.