Hearts to open new dressing rooms in latest stage of £18m Tynecastle rebuild

Hearts expect to move into new state-of-the-art dressing rooms at Tynecastle Park in time for the Ladbrokes Premiership kicking off in August.

Tynecastle Park

The latest phase of the stadium’s £18million redevelopment project is the changing areas in the new main stand, which are almost complete. They should be in use by the time the 2019/20 league campaign begins on August 3.

Home and away players have been using dressing rooms beneath the Wheatfield Stand for the last two years while the main stand was rebuilt. A new tunnel area had to be created but next season teams will emerge from the traditional main stand side of the ground.

The changing areas include top-level facilities for players, coaching and medical staff. Their opening will be the latest stage in the bid to have the stand fully operational, with the rooftop Skyline Lounge opening for business this month.

The reconstructed main stand holds 7,290 seats and opened in November 2017 after a two-month delay.

Craig Levein and the Hearts squad report to Riccarton for the first day of pre-season training on June 21. Their first friendly is eight days later away to Arbroath, with competitive action beginning in the Betfred Cup against Dundee United on July 12.

Meanwhile, the Tynecastle defender Michael Smith played 64 minutes of Northern Ireland’s 2-1 European Championship qualifying win in Estonia over the weekend. Young midfielder Alex Petkov played for Bulgarian Under-21s in a friendly tournament.