stumpjumper wrote:JamesXander, Will and Crawf
With respect, you guys are several posts/weeks/evolutions behind the times, but in another way you're in the right place.
The concept of 'build it all in the one place to suit everyone and that place is Adelaide Oval' is simply trying to load too much onto that site. I suspect that you're really talking about $1.5 billion to set the place up properly with all the compromises resolved.
What we've never done, in my opinion, is to go back to basics and ask: 'What arena facilities do we need?'
If we could do that, then the reasoning might go like this:
Cricket seems to be well-served by the present Adelaide Oval setup, despite the grandiose dreams of Ian McLachlan and SACA's self-inflicted debt. Cricket gets tiny to small crowds most of the time, with larger and occasional sellout crowds for international and Test matches. No compelling reason to do much for cricket.
AFL/SANFL footy (SANFL at least) made a play years ago with AAMI. To an extent, AAMI is now a bed in which they must now lie. They could sell AAMI as Waverley was sold, or spend money on it. AAMI is not near the city centre. OK, I believe that was mentioned but overruled when the stadium was built. However, it does have ample parking, and with a light rail/tram extension from the city it could be a goer. Say $200 mill for the transport and $200 million on the stadium for a start. We'd have an AFL oval of national standard, and a good cricket ground. For footy to turn its back on AAMI and try to get set at Adelaide Oval would require a huge co-investment in oval facilities, transport and parking (SACA has no money, so it would be public investment).
FIA football or soccer - I'll call it soccer. The game is growing, and Hindmarsh has probably reached its limits. We might get the World Cup in 2018 or 2022.
So, the sensible course is to look at options, but wait until the FIA decision in Dec 2010 about the WC.
If we do get the WC, and decide we want to host matches (which I suggest we do) then the choice is whether to try to create FIFA compliant facilities at AO, AAMI or stand alone.
Stand alone is probably the cheapest choice, with a new rectangular stadium giving us a flexible stadium for rugby codes, hockey, athletics and general entertainment as well. A fully shaded, lit stadium would cost under $300 million (plus land).
Converting the oval AAMI to rectangular FIFA compliance is problematic. The MCC works because it is a tall, circular stadium. Whether the action inside occurs on a soccer pitch or an AFL oval doesn't make much difference to the bulk of seats. AAMI lacks the seats, the sightlines and the extent of facilities to reach FIFA compliance easily or cheaply, with poor transport exacerbating the problem.
Adelaide Oval presents expensive problems on all counts. Older but still sound buildings, limitations on parking, heritage constraints, a broke lessee, poor transport despite CBD location.
So, sport politics and political politics aside, we should spend about $300 million on a stand alone stadium.
But in SA, we usually put politics first. So, with self-interested representatives lining up from SACA, AFL, SANFL plus of course Labor and Liberal, we are now trying to ram a square peg into a round hole at Adelaide Oval.
Now, having got ourselves into a mess, we will increasingly hear the shouts from the 'just build it' brigade.
My suggestion, before we commit our future to the experts who blew out the Western Grandstand development from $50 million to $135 million, is to take a very deep breath, put the present dispute aside, forget sports politics and Labor/Liberal politics and make a rational decision about what to do.
So your option is to create another UNSUSTAINABLE stadium, for a short term event. You solve none of the existing problems (SANFL, AFC & PAFC) & the AAMI question. Not only that you make the Hindmarsh investment redundant.
Epic Fail.
