St James' Park proposal approved after Newcastle United reach historic £40m agreement

Newcastle United's plans to be build a temporary club shop at St James' Park have been approved by the city council.

The Magpies recently submitted a proposal to assemble an interim shop at St James' Metro Car Park. This is to allow the existing store to be "comprehensively refurbished" as part of Adidas' eagerly-anticipated return as official kit partners this summer.

The temporary site, which isn't currently in use, will consist of prefabricated containers with planning permission given until November this year. It will help protect jobs and allow Newcastle to generate their merchandise income as normal.

Indeed, it was announced in September last year that Adidas had agreed a multi-year deal - believed to be worth £40million per season - to take the reigns from the unpopular Castore.

As well as manufacturer the club's kits, the Adidas agreement will see Newcastle rebuild its own retail operations both in store and online, locally and globally. The retail operation is currently under the full control of Castore as part of the deal former owner Mike Ashley signed off in 2021.

Although there has been a huge lack of customer satisfaction surrounding Castore, the return of Adidas provides a significant financial benefit with Newcastle only previously receiving a reported £5m-per-year from Castore.

United had been locked in to a multi-year deal with Castore but were able to negotiate early exit last summer. Newcastle officials travelled to Adidas' HQ in Germany last year and the agreement has since been described as the biggest commercial deal in the club's history.

Meanwhile, construction work is already taking place at St James' Park with the new fan zone - St James' Park STACK - expected to open in June.

"We're full steam ahead on [the fan zone]," said Newcastle CEO Darren Eales. Our plan is to get it open for that spring, summer time and we're looking to try and get it open for the end of the season, certainly by the start of next season to have that fully open.

"To be clear it's not just on matchday, St James' Stack will be open seven days a week and we're excited because it gives us more of that footprint. It goes back to our fan base and we've got this amazing fan base which is twice the size of St James' Park.

"The ability for us to have a footprint with St James' Stack to do events there and make fans feel connected without a season ticket is part of how we're thinking about our ability to grow the club and make our supporters feel more connected. It's not just on a match day, it's about what else we can do around the club 365 days a year."

Both the club store and fan zone will help Newcastle significantly as they comply with Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules."