How exactly would a stadium be a boon to UniSA?
A lot of stadiums around the world are closely connected to universities. Sure, in the US uni sport is far more highly developed, but a stadium would promote sports courses as well as in the case of UniSA and would provide some more weekday parking near the uni. But I take the general point that it's a relatively minor issue.
Even if somehow you can come up with an explanation for your comment, isn't Adelaide Oval roughly the same distance from the UniSA City West campus as a railyards stadium, but furthermore, Adelaide Oval is closer to the UniSA City East campus as well as Adelaide University?
Fair enough.
Furthermore, a frequent theme in your posts is criticism of the amount of money being spent by the state government on Adelaide Oval.
My concern's not so much about the amount to be spent (subject to realistic spending priorities) but the manner of funding and the ownership. $800 mill on a publicly owned stadium open to all sports who want to book it is one thing,
giving a stadium to two private sports bodies is another. That's a concern, and so is doing it without making public a business plan. I';d like to know the effect on ticket prices and what the overheads are likely to be
your comment about renovating the RAH, makes me wonder where your priorities are. So you are uncomfortable with the 'compromised' Adelaide Oval plan, yet would be comfortable with the Liberals 'compromised' RAH renovation?
That's another argument, but not a very strong one. Renovating the RAH was an option a lot of RAH users didn't have a problem with.
On another point, why does Adelaide need 3 stadiums which do exactly the same thing? Consider Brisbane, a city almost double our population. It does perfectly fine just with the GABBA, or Melbourne, despite having 9 teams in the AFL does perfectly fine with 2 stadiums? The cricket and AFL seasons do not overlap, so it makes sense to share a stadium.
The facilities and accommodation at AO as it was were really only suitable for cricket. It was hardly a stadium - more like a large suburban oval. AAMI has always had good and bad points, but it is the only decent large public venue in the entire west of the city, and would
probably be viable now and into the future as a large venue even with a city stadium. You'd have to see some analysis to know for sure.
maintenance costs only need to be spent on 1 stadium, instead of 3 as you propose.
That's true, but maintenance costs are a bearable expense if the income is there on the other side. I assume that the overheads for SACA's western grandstand are less than the old structure. Whether we could maintain AAMI more or less as is, AO with only the western grandstand replaced and run a new full-on stadium depends on the income. Who knows?
My suggestion at this stage would be to stop where we are for say 18 months so that we can 'test drive' the cricket/football sharing arrangement at AO, look at the traffic impacts and other issues, see how the public likes it, then once we know how it all works, proceed with one of four options: (1) the AO eastern redevelopment plus the carpark etc; (2) improve AAMI; (3) plan for a new separate stadium; (4) do nothing.
There are so many areas of doubt that a moratorium of a year or so could save us a lot of money and effort in the long run, while the focus remains on providing ourselves with the best possible facilities. I don't think 'do nothing' is a good option, btw.