Sir Robert McAlpine leads race for Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) is to open negotiations with a team, headed by Sir Robert McAlpine, about designing and constructing the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

The consortium currently in talks with the ODA is the Team McAlpine Consortium, which is the same grouping of companies that delivered Arsenal Football Club’s new Emirates Stadium on time and on budget.

The team includes Sir Robert McAlpine, HOK Sport, Buro Happold and M-E Engineering Inc.

The ODA said the consortium’s submission was the only one that met all of its pre-qualification criteria.

ODA chief executive David Higgins said: “We will be putting in place appropriate cost controls to ensure that budgets are managed properly and that value for money is being achieved.

“As you would expect, we have robust contingency plans in place should negotiations with Team McAlpine not conclude.”