Architect Dan Meis on designing Everton's new stadium and how it will give the Toffees an edge: Running the Game 09/12/25

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0:43It's a guide aimed at helping fans experience the city as a local. It's built by you, our listeners, recommending some of the best small businesses in your communities, like the finest Viet Cajun in Houston. Yes. The best burrito in San Francisco. Yes. Where to savour lemon pepper wet in Atlanta. Yes, yes, yes. A massive shout out to our sponsor Visa, who's made this guide possible. Visa gives local business owners the tools and support to be ready for moments exactly like this one. Welcoming you to enjoy the games this summer. Start planning your journey at meninblazers.com backslash cityguides.

1:23With the American Express Platinum card, I can unlock experiences like no other. Since I'm always booking my next trip, I love that I can earn points on travel. Plus, I get a resi benefit, so you know I'm hitting the restaurants everyone's talking about. And you can find out your welcome offer after you apply, which could be as high as 175 ,000 points. For experiences like no other, there's nothing like platinum. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore dash platinum. Terms apply. You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network. suboptimal radio. I loved watching you communicate constantly with Everton fans.

2:03There were some really robust conversations. Capacity was an issue. Why not have one more seat than Anfield? Every one of those debates happened all the time. Was that the most constant comment? Oh yeah, pretty much. Have you thought about this, Dan?

2:22How do you go about replacing a stadium that's been a centre point of community? like Goodison Park, built in 1892. A place that's seen titles won, bangers scored. A place where I've laughed, a place where I've cried many times. A place where I've broken my glasses, celebrating that James Tarkovsky last-minute goal of wonder in the 2-2 win in the last Merseyside derby there. How do you go about designing, planning, and then building the replacement? Because football clubs are not like homes, where you can move the family into a suburban new build seamlessly. there's community, there's memory, there's identity.

2:59Get it wrong and you can sterilize the whole city. Spoiler alert, we've already seen such heady heights at Everton's new stadium, the Hill Dickinson. The Greenland Aesons is in full swing. And so in this episode, it's a joy to welcome the architectural genius who had the vision and then made it real over a 10-year journey to build this new home with its stunning steep terraces, 100 % sustainable energy, and the 747 toilets to tell the story about how an enormous piece of design could become a reality against the odds to transform the club and the city. It's a joy to welcome the American architect who envisioned there, a gentleman who's been on an epic 10-year creative journey in which he's picked up not only an Everton tattoo, but also an Everton license plate, I believe.

3:50It's an incredible honor to be with the visionary, Mr. Dan Meese. Thanks for having me. Really happy to be here. Dan, it's incredible to be with you, not just to hear about your vision made real, but it's also incredible times for Everton Football Club. The Jack Nassance, the Grealish Nassance, those tiny shin pads, a blur of wonder. As we sit here, I swear this happened, historians. Everton are in fifth place in the Premier League. How does it feel as an American to know that you've had the long-lasting impact on the Premier League in a way few Americans have other than Clint Dempsey. It's pretty incredible.

4:27It really is. It's been a big honor. It's been a long journey. I looked at an early sketch. It's been 10 years, but yet it still feels kind of magical to go there. I mean, I remember doing the sketch and I've seen it coming up, but to see it built, it feels like it just kind of appeared. Are you serious? Most people are like, it's been 10 years, feels like 100. To you, does this experience really feel like one minute I'm drawing, The next minute I'm walking out at the Hill Dickinson, it's packed with fans. Everton are winning. It really does feel that way. I know it sounds a little absurd because it took the work of thousands of people to make it happen and 10 years.

5:03But when you see it there, it just feels like it kind of just appeared. You know, I'm not an elite psychologist, but I do know there's something called repression. So this is almost like, I guess, kind of an Everton Football Club trauma therapy. We're going to dive in, unpack those 10 years. Let's start right at the beginning. because you're a fascinating human being. Scout's accent is not there because you're from Windsor, Colorado, which is population. It was 3 ,000 when I lived there, tiny little town. So how does a kid growing up in a town of 3 ,000, or is it because a kid grew up in a town of 3 ,000, you decided to dedicate your life to building stadia where 50, 60, 70 ,000 people can come together and commune.

5:43How did that happen? No, yeah, it wasn't really planned. When I was small, my parents owned the corner bakery And when the town built a new high school, the architects displayed the model because everybody would come to the bakery in the morning. So I would go in and look at this model and take off the roof. And I thought, wow, somebody gets paid to do this. You know, that seems like a cool job. Make tiny models. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I didn't know. I just thought architects built houses and then I would someday end up in Aspen. That was my aspiration to design houses and have a horse. Make your arm off to live in Aspen and have a horse.

6:17But you did dive in. That pivot to being a sports architect happened when? Well, so I went to Chicago for school and I worked in a well-known architect's office there who did skyscrapers all over the world and exposed me to big architecture. And one day I had a friend say, hey, I don't know if you'd ever live in Kansas City, but there are these firms that specialize in stadiums and seem like a cool building type. And I had dated a girl from Kansas City and I thought, well, I'll give that a shot. Stadiums, a girl, barbecue, I'm in. And the journey began. And you start off designing stadia, ballparks in the United States, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks, Milwaukee Brewers, amongst others.

6:56You delved into AS Roma and the idea of a new stadium. And then a business associate asked you if you go to Liverpool, take a meeting with Everton Football Club. I think Everton's then CEO was Robert Elstone, right? What did you know about Everton when you got on that plane? And how did that meeting go? Yeah, the only thing I knew about Everton, really. I mean, I knew Premier League clubs, but Everton, my son had been a huge FIFA video game fan, obviously. And he was a big fan of Lukaku. And I was really fascinated by Lukaku. He was such a big guy and yet was so fast. And, you know, so that's what really got me watching them.

7:36But when this colleague of mine said, hey, if I can get you a meeting with Everton, would you take it? I said, you know, they're not going to hire an architect from Los Angeles. That makes no sense. I mean, to me, it seemed like a pretty parochial place. And the idea that they would hire an architect from the United States, let alone Los Angeles, just didn't make sense. But he got me the meeting. I got on a flight. And then everything went wrong. My plane was late to Heathrow. So I missed my first train. And then I got in the next train. And that train stopped halfway to Liverpool, which I learned is something that happens.

8:12Welcome to England. They schedule the breakdown. When you get on, the 10-22 will break down at 11-17. You're like, great. And this is a true story. I literally thought pretty hard about just crossing the platform and going home because I thought this is a waste of time. But I found out that Robert was, in fact, waiting for me. And I went and it was great. He helped me with my bags up into the office. And in probably, I don't know, a half hour meeting, the light bulb kind of went off for me because he talked about who Everton was and how, you know, we're not London. We're not a fancy club. We don't need all the shiny bells and whistles.

8:50We need a proper football stadium. And that got me thinking about the tradition of English football and how these buildings grew up. And I was always fascinated by that because I thought a lot of the new buildings in the UK were feeling more like NFL buildings. And it seemed like it was losing the charm. and what made English football really unique. A lot like baseball stadiums, interestingly, where you start with a pitch and a stand and then as the club grows, they grow up kind of quirky. You know, you add a stand here, a different architect comes and adds this stand and that's what really created the sort of charm of early baseball stadiums and the same thing with English football.

9:25So that was my angle. That was the light bulb that kind of went off for me in that first meeting. Character, idiosyncrasy, a singularity. I want to pick up on that learning journey, but what you just said there is a true power to that that you almost are like out i'm out the universe was almost conspiring to you because i do believe watching football a lot if there is a god she may be a red it may have been you know the plane late the train late but still you persevered do you ever think like if you had crossed that track oh it's crazy well my wife tells me all the time like when i say i don't want to go to this meeting this project will never happen of course those are the ones that end up happening i don't know what i work with roger bennett thank you wife for making him do this biggest mistake of his life but that learning journey when you plummet in you leave the robert elston meeting there's something about it the the challenge that he gave you to build something with character with culture with a locality that had a global quality but a true authenticity that spoke of everton what learning journey do you go on to plumb through the layers of time and the evolution of football stadium what do you look at how do you do it what archives are you delving into where's the inspirations i mean i literally did everything from you know buying every book on english football grounds i could find i was on ebay looking for vintage everton stuff tickets and programs and old jerseys and i mean we really did immerse ourselves in that history because i believe that was going to be my superpower that I was coming as American.

10:54I wasn't taking anything for granted. And I felt like what was happening in architecture around football stadiums in the UK was everybody was trying to be international and more like the NFL and really losing a lot of the magic of a place like Goodison, which, you know, I felt that from the very first time I was there. But what about the city of Liverpool? I'm so proud to be from there. It is different. It does think differently. When I grew up, there was a talk politically of it seeding from the rest of England and becoming a principality does feel like a magical kingdom. What spoke to you about that place in general and Everton Football Club and its tradition in particular?

11:31Well, you know, as an American, obviously, Liverpool, you think about the Beatles and the history that everybody sort of knows. But spending time there, I got to know a lot about the architectural history. And, you know, we didn't know about Bramley Moore at the beginning. It was actually a UNESCO World Heritage site at the time when we first started. But when we were first talking to Everton, the site wasn't really clear. It was later that we got the focus of Bramley Moore Dock and this incredible history of the shipbuilding and all of that of Liverpool. You definitely got Everton incredibly quickly.

12:04You tweeted, watching Everton games gave you, quote, that same feeling I get when deciding to ride a roller roller coaster but the top of that first hill i think f and i'm paraphrasing why did i do this again yeah very true and you know even though i've i've worked on lots of incredible projects there was something about that being an evertonian and that that really soaked in so quickly and i became a fan at the same time i was chasing the project so that was an interesting experience Where's your tattoo, by the way? It's right here. Yeah, 1878. We just put on at the Robert Elstone meeting. Is that how you closed the deal?

12:44No, no, no. You just grabbed the compass off his desk and said, this is how much I want to give myself to the club. It was after that first year of watching the team, I think, and engaging with fans on Twitter. And I knew that this was going to be in my blood one way or another, no matter where the project went. So it was a commitment. So you committed emotionally. You committed intellectually. You delved into the stadia. I mean, you are a sports fan as well as an architect. You've talked a lot quite beautifully about how you really do appreciate the heritage of old stadia. Stately old homes almost where memories have been forged for generations.

13:19Places like Boston's Fenway Park, Chicago's Wrigley Field. I think they opened in 1912, 1914. Fulham's Craven Cottage, I know, is something that's inspired you. Also designed like Goodison Park by the great architect Archibald Leach. Talk about the stadia journey that you went on as you looked at design, as you looked at early ideas for atmosphere and how you thought about building something that's both timeless and rooted in in the past, but it also speaks of the future, a bold future. Yeah, well, this was the interesting twist in the story that Bill Kenwright played a big role in. The iconic late Everton chairman.

13:55Chairman, yeah. And for those that have never met him, he was about as passionate a fan as anyone has ever seen of Everton. But I hadn't spoken to him yet. I'd only had my meetings with Robert as I was doing all of this thinking about traditional English football. And so I did some sketches that really looked like some of those historic grounds, you know, exposed trusses. And different stands had different character to them. And it almost looked like different architects might have put it together, but in a very, you know, modern stadium kind of way. But it definitely had a kind of traditional English football look.

14:29so when i met bill kenright for the first time and and i ran through everything that i've just talked about and how important this is the history and all that he said yeah yeah yeah i get that but that's not what we want you know it should draw on that history but it has to be future thinking and so i i thought i was dead in the water actually did that rock you oh yeah because i what you're doing that man you don't you like nod knowingly and then on the inside you're like oh my floor is jelly. The floor is just a limit. Yeah, I really did. I thought, okay, I thought I was very clever about this and being so passionate about it.

15:01And he kind of shot it down pretty quickly. But he was intrigued. He was a theater guy. And so I think the LA connection was interesting to him. I think the idea, he was always great at bringing talent together in his shows and his passion for the club. So I think he saw me as a bit of a disruptor in that way from the usual suspects. And it gave me a challenge to, okay, can we keep this sense of history but really look to something more forward thinking? And at that point, we were now looking at Bramley Moore. So we had the whole history of the docks and the UNESCO World Heritage history and all of that to now draw those ideas together.

15:37What a canvas. Also, what a raw source of inspiration you had in Goodison Park. I mean, this is fascinating to me. When Goodison Park opened in 1892, local newspaper the athletic news wrote that quote they've not put down a running track around the ground being of opinion the nearer you can get your spectators to the play the more your spectators will appreciate it and by that i think they meant wanker signs um keeping the crowd close to the pitch that bear pit the goodison was it was such an intimidating and singular place to play It's so hard to talk about it in the past tense, even as I say that makes my heart constrict.

16:18But what was your architect's experience of going to go to some part for the first time that grand old home, both as an architect and an Everton supporter? Well, it was all of those things and more. You know, there are a few places in sports history, I think, that are almost like a religious experience. You mentioned Fenway or Wrigley and Madison Square Garden even has it, even though it's not a particularly pretty architecture. there's something about the history of a place that you know you feel different when you're there and I got that instantly when I walked into Goodison the first time I was there I was in a box so I didn't get the full experience the second time I sat behind a column you rip your shirt off they're like we don't do that here Dan but the other thing that struck me on that very first game was how many families were were there and kids and not something I expected having worked on Roma and you know seen some of the really hardcore fan clubs you didn't see a lot of kids in those buildings.

17:11So that I knew was something special too, that this was a multi-generational passion. So there was a lot of inspiration to come out of that. It's good. It's intimidating to you. You know, they say never follow kids or animals or whatever. Like how do you follow goodness and fire? You're like, this is so raw, so pure. You're talking about creating something singular. That was the most singular place in the modern football realm. You're almost like, how do I follow that? It's like trying to act after De Niro's just left the stage. Yeah. Well, and I had some recent experience of seeing what had happened with clubs like Arsenal and West Ham in particular, leaving a traditional building to something that was sure big and shiny, but lost a lot of character, obviously.

17:53And the fans really suffered from it and, you know, still are. So I was intimidated by that, but it was so clear that the driver was, we had to start with the steepest stands right on top of the pitch, and everything else would kind of fall into place. Whose idea was that? Well, I don't know. I think it was a collective idea. Again, part of it was because I knew we couldn't stray very far from Goodison. And so we thought, well, if we can stay this close and get steeper, because it's going to be taller, even though you might be sitting further away, if you're steeper, you feel like you're closer.

18:26You're right on top of it. The other thing, by that time I was a rabid fan and I recognized how much the play on the pitch changes based on how the fans interact with them. The players react to the stadium. They really do. The Everton fume. Yeah. So if the fans are with them, the players are going to play better. And it's a chicken and egg. They really do respond to each other. What's it like for you? You've been to now Liverpool dozens of times, but you are designing in Los Angeles. What's it like when you're in creative mode, dreaming about a stadium being built thousands of miles away from you, you're physically in LA, mentally, creatively on the banks of the River Mersey?

19:08Yeah, it's funny, our process, and this is, you know, I have a lot of great people that work with me that have really engaged in this too. I create a sort of war room-like atmosphere in my offices with lots of imagery and historical photos, books, and the memorabilia and the things I was talking about before, I kind of surround myself. So while I'm working on a project, I'm very immersed in whatever that place is, which makes it hard for me to do more than one project at a time. So it's a pro and a con, but clearly that was a big part of why this design became what it was. We are delighted to bring you the Men in Blazers City Guides, presented by Visa, a joyously assembled guide to the best places to eat, drink and explore and watch the beautiful game across the country.

19:55It's a guide aimed at helping fans experience the city as a local. It's built by you, our listeners, recommending some of the best small businesses in your communities, like the finest Viet Cajun in Houston. Yes. The best burrito in San Francisco. Yes. Where to savour lemon pepper wet in Atlanta. Yes, yes, yes. A massive shout out to our sponsor Visa, who's made this guide possible. Visa gives local business owners the tools and support to be ready for moments exactly like this one, welcoming you to enjoy the games this summer. Start planning your journey at meninblazers.com backslash cityguides.

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21:21it's been no straight line the 10 years have been for your project for everton football club for every single everton fan i mean just an utterly agonizing epic emotional journey you bound up your first series of designs in a royal blue book made to look like one of archibald leech's signature crisscross railings that covered the beautiful bullens road at goodison park you You presented it proudly. You put your heart, your soul, your whole team into this. As you say, the late Bill Kenwright turned around and said, I hate it. What do you do with doubt in those moments? How do you regroup? I mean, how do you not just doubt everything that you put into this project in a moment like that?

22:02It is scary, for sure, because I wondered if we had lost him at that point. But at the same time, I thrive on the pitch. I thrive on that creative pushback. And so the fact that he was engaged and he had an idea, and yet I could tell that he was interested in that we were bringing a kind of disruptor attitude to it. So what we did next is I rented an Airbnb in London. I brought my team over and we built a model in the studio that we created in this Airbnb. And then we went back for another meeting and said, hey, what about this? and that was the first time that he saw the idea of the kind of brick base coming out of the dock with this curvy roof which the early sketch I did was the idea that that's the wave of blue fans washing over the banks of the mercy and he fell in love with that like instantly and Robert Robert Elstone's face I could tell he was a bit nervous because Bill said that's what we're going to do and you know of course we didn't know how much it was going to cost at the time or It was just an idea, but it was an idea that brought what he cared about and what I had cared about and it came together.

23:07And it's that collaboration. And that's where great architecture comes from. Bill fell in love with that model. That model. As you'd fallen in love with the high school model in the Windsor bakery. Yeah, and it's true. We had our roof that you could open up. There's something really compelling about that. There's something beautiful, the layers, but also childishly seeing the thing as opposed to having to try and construct it mentally. I mean, ultimately, it's about how you present it. But that was, I mean, it's such a stunning concept. The Mersey is the lifeblood of the city of Liverpool. It shaped the city in its greatest days.

23:41The state of it, when I was growing up, also reflected the city, a city on the downs. It is now proud and glorious again. How did you have that idea that the stadium would literally be as if the Mersey itself had gifted it back to the city? You know, I try and explain this a lot that I very when I'm sketching, I very rarely draw what I think I'm going to draw. I tend to start to sketch and then I see it in there. And it's like your hand is doing it. Yeah. And then I recognize something in the sketch. And that was the I had this idea that sort of brick walls. And then I did this swoop basically of the wave coming over.

24:19And that gave me that sort of basic shape. It came from the subconscious. Yeah, a bit. Well, songwriters talk about this. Often they do not know where the song comes from. It takes four minutes for Noel to write, Don't Look Back in Anger or whatever. It's like a muse, a creative process that starts, Thank you, Big Rob. Thank you. It goes through your journey, the inputs. It was just genuinely, it comes from, do you know where it comes from inside it? I really don't. It does feel subconscious though. I've always loved the story that Michelangelo was competing for that piece of stone that he carved David from.

24:54And he talked about that he could see David in the stone and he basically just let him out. There was something in there. And that's how I always feel about that, that in those sketches, something's driving it. I mean, obviously I've had a lot of input, but it feels, again, kind of magical because I don't mean to draw that necessarily. It just sort of comes out of that sketch. God bless Michelangelo, proper blue, by the way. This process, I've said it three times now, started 10 years ago. You had to survive a global pandemic, periods of global conflict and darkness, two points deductions, and a 26-game stretch under Sam Allardyce.

25:32I mean, we also lost Bill Kenwright in October 2023. Really tragic. The club's former owner, Farhad Mishiri, along the way. He tried to sell the club to seven, seven, seven partners, a deal that, thank God, failed. Although I will say, when ESPN do decide to make a 30 for 30, about it, it will be remarkable. Then in Swooped, the Freaking Group, how did this uncertainty in the boardroom affect the project? How much does it affect you personally and your own journey parallel? It of course affected the project a lot. There were a lot of times where I thought the project could go away. I knew that there was a struggle and they had made a bold decision to pick this site and it was going to cost a lot more to build on this site than a normal building.

26:15So there were lots of things working against it just on a base level. And then when you have COVID and all the other things you mentioned. Projects have gotten derailed for a lot less reasoning than this one went through. And the struggles on the pitch, obviously. Any relegation would have made a difference. And I found myself, interestingly, in talking to fans, becoming a kind of therapist for the fans. I wanted everybody to stay positive because I knew, just like what I said before about how it affects play on the pitch, it affects how the club's feeling about what they're investing and doing.