Voith-Arena
The Voith - Arena (formerly GAGFAH Arena or Albstadion ) is a football stadium in Heidenheim. It is the home of football third division 1 FC Heidenheim 1846. The stadium has 10,000 seats. 3000 of them are seats. It lies on the Heidenheim Castle Hill, near Castle Bright stone at 555 meters above sea level.
From June 2009 to September 2010, the former multi-purpose stadium was converted into a pure football arena.
On 17 February 2009, the Heidenheim council decided to build a new football stadium at the point of getting on in years Albstadions. After the conversion plan initially provided for a capacity of 8,000 spectators, it was changed after the rise of 1st FC Heidenheim in the 3rd League, as the DFB prescribes a minimum capacity of 10,000 spectators here. The costs for the conversion thus rose to around 14.1 million euros. This was for the most part the city of Heidenheim, which is also still owns the stadium, and the FCH as the main user. The rebuilding began one day after the last season game against 1.FC Nürnberg II in June 2009. Already the first home game of the season 2009/10 could again be held in Heidenheim against the Wuppertal SV. The naming rights for the new arena had initially acquired the real estate company GAGFAH. Thus, the stadium for about one and a half years bore the name GAGFAH Arena.
The Voith - Arena has with the grandstand in the North (2000 seats), an opposite stand, the former grandstand in the South (1000 seats) and one each stand behind on the east and west sides of the stadium, each with 3500 standing places a total of 10,000 places. The new grandstand houses the FCH business club with 1,000 seats and 17 business lounges (16 to 45 m²) for a total of 1,000 guests. In addition, since December 2010, the office of the Association, the event office of the Voith - Arena and the fan shop are housed in the main grandstand. 4 February 2011 there also opened the FCH STEIFF kids club with some life-sized plush animals by Steiff and numerous play stations to 120 m². The newly designed entrance area hundreds of names of donors ( pause ) find n a block action. In the Voith - Arena stadium public tours take in addition to the approximately 25 football games per year, more than 100 corporate and private events, as well as take. Landmark of the stadium are the beginning of October 2009 established floodlight towers that protrude from the four corners forth diagonally across the pitch. The playing field is provided with a soil heating. Other special features include the proximity of the audience to the edge of the field that are more than seven meters away from the sidelines, and the steeply sloped bleachers. Since mid-April 2010 is located in the corner of West Stand and old grandstand a Digital 6 x 4 meters large video wall. This comes from the old Tivoli Aachen. In the home match against Dynamo Dresden on 30 April 2010, she went for the first time in Heidenheim in operation. During the construction of the arena, the goal was to build the first energy-neutral stadium in German professional football. For this, except the one built on all grandstand roofs of the opposite stand solar panels and a rainwater storage pond, which is used for watering the lawn behind the West Stand.
Above the stadium created two new training pitches, one with soil heating and artificial turf. On this artificial pitch the first and currently the only so-called kick- back facility in Germany was installed. Here, the shot on the concrete wall ball comes back at different speeds and trajectories and calls the shooter out to fast reactions, in which a very high training effect is achieved. The plant is about 42 feet long. It was developed and built by the Scos GmbH.
The official inauguration of the Voith - Arena was held by a friendly match between 1.FC Heidenheim against VfB Stuttgart on September 4, 2010. The opening game ended 2:3. In the home game against VfR Aalen 19 March 2011 the stadium was sold out for the first time.
The first game, which was broadcast live from the Voith - Arena, was the game of the German U20 national team of men on October 7, 2010 at the Switzerland and Germany faced each other. The game ended 2-0 for Germany.
On 24 February 2011 the name of the stadium in Voith - Arena has been changed after the Voith GmbH acquired the naming rights for the next ten years.
Currently, the South Stand of the stadium will be expanded and the two adjacent curves closed. Behind the south-east corner a youth academy will be housed. After completion of construction, the stadium will offer 13,000 spectators. On the square in front of the East Stand a stadium restaurant and a fan and ticket shop were built. The total cost of the ongoing expansion projects amount to approximately 6.5 million euros, of which the city of Heidenheim contributes 3.6 million. The rest will be covered by the club and sponsors.
Original plans to build the stadium in north-south orientation, or to build a new stadium near the highway entrance to the A7 at Seeberg, wore off due to high costs.