[COM] Adelaide Oval Redevelopment

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Peter Vaughan of Business SA has come out in support. Now there's someone who would have done the math so we needn't worry any more.

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RAW: Adelaide Oval No Case Reaches Country – see Video clip

Apr 19th


Following SACA President, Ian McLachlan’s recent forays into country areas, the Provincial Cities Association and running these ads on Riverland and South East television. SA Country Adelaide Oval No Vote Ad

Also, for lovers of local media personalities who have changed their tune on the Adelaide Oval development in the past 12 months, see this classic piece by Graham Cornes. Graham Cornes Last Year on Adelaide Oval. hey Graham, what changed?

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Sorry - forgot the link:


http://youtu.be/V1Mt2C2NVhs

[Stump Jumper]

Absolutely brilliant development proposed and being extremely well managed to this point.

[stumpjumper]

They say that there's an alternate universe in which everything and everyone has an exact opposite...

[Prince George]

You mean, of course, Bizarro World!

[dsriggs]

I like this Stump Jumper fellow. He'll go far.

[stumpjumper]

Taught him everything he knows...

[stumpjumper]

An interesting development: Mike Rann has announced that AO will host an international soccer match in June this year.

[Pants]

Absolutely brilliant development proposed and being extremely well managed to this point.

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RAW: Adelaide Oval and The SMA – A Case Study To Worry About

Apr 20th

A Premier Announces Works Begin Four Months Before An Election On Another Game Changer

The proponents of the Adelaide Oval redevelopment, which includes just about every major organisation in town – the media, the Government, its business lackeys and the sporting lords, forever push this line about this project being ‘world class’, ‘a game changer’ and the like for this town. Well, consideration of a similar dream in the West may give all cause for thought.

In 2007, the WA Labor Government announced an exciting new CBD sports and entertainment complex, the Perth Arena. Government websites at the time proclaimed it ‘state-of-the-art’, ‘spectacular’, ‘iconic’, ‘the jewel in the crown…driving revitalisation of the area and re-establishing a connection between the city’s commercial and entertainment hubs, and ‘a world class facility attracting national and international sporting and entertainment events to Perth.’

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

The project was to be run by VenuesWest, the statutory body established to manage Western Australia’s major state owned sporting facilities. This can be considered the equivalent of our Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority, given it has taken on a role in its constitution of developing and managing cricket, football, other sports and entertainment in a multi-purpose stadium in an area that includes not only Adelaide Oval but also the Memorial Drive tennis centre.

The Perth Arena was originally costed at $160m and was to be finished in 2009. However, as a result of the project not being properly ‘scoped or planned’ and key elements of the planning being ‘skipped or rushed’, in March last year, the WA Auditor General issued a scathing assessment of the massive project saying ‘the governance, oversight, project management and administration of the project were all flawed.’

Today the project is more than $300m over budget (a blow out of three times the original cost) with a total cost likely to exceed $500m and completion is tentatively put back to May 2012, three years late. Control of it has been taken away from VenuesWest and the relevant State Government department and given over to private operators who know how to do the job properly.

A key failing in the cost blow out was the WA Labor Government’s decision to award a flexible price contract when originally demanding a fixed price one in order to have announcements for its failed re-election bid in late 2008.

WA media also report that the delays are costing venues and businesses nearby considerably and the loss of the Hopman Cup to Perth is now likely as its contract with the WA Government ends in 2013. It had expected to be using the new arena for at least its New Year’s 2012 competition.

Just why we think Adelaide will fare better with the Adelaide Oval redevelopment is not clear but here are reasons why we should be worried, very worried.

First the price tag of $535m was set 18 months ago and already things like the footbridge have been dropped from the scope. No updated costings have been provided to SACA members in the SACA Information Booklet. Nobody knows who is going to pick up the shortfall when it arises. As previously reported, the State Government doesn’t know and neither does the SACA. SACA President, Ian McLachlan keeps referring to not knowing the final costs until even beyond the tender phase and until it is finally built. In Perth, the builder has already filed claims for an additional $50m in costs beyond the last approved budget. The SANFL have said it won’t and the SACA won’t have any money or assets left to do anything with even if it wanted to.

One can only imagine there is a political reality about this – when the actual costs come in, the Government will pay for it – probably out of the $1b pot it has set aside for its Riverbank precinct project. What else can it do – leave its grand building legacy half built on the banks of the Torrens?

Then there is the fact that the SACA’s western grandstand was built with a 30% cost blow out from $85m to $115m under the watch of McLachlan and SACA CEO John Harnden, both of whom will sit as directors on the SMA, with McLachlan as its Chairman. Still, even after the extra $30m that project failed to meet basic demands ‘of world class facilities’ like toilets in the bars and on the same level as the dining room. Such a botch is confessed to in the Information Booklet when it states (page 19) ‘the Western Grandstand … will have more places to eat and drink and extra toilets installed as part of the redevelopment.’

Further, the SACA Information Booklet provides no reassurance that the detailed planning required (and which undermined the Perth Arena) has been done. As mentioned, no updated costings have been provided and there is no detailed work done yet on car parking off-site and the extra public transport needs that will arise with moving the dreamt of crowds of 50,000 on a regular basis. As we have reported previously, there has been no consultation done with the Adelaide City Council on areas of concern to it such as public transport, car parking and public consultation. Indeed, there are no agreements in existence with anyone about this project!

Finally, the relationship across the Nullarbor of iconic projects to political party election needs is obvious. As are the costs to everything else while the grand plan gets foisted on the taxpaying public. We have lost sporting events one after the other in this State (the Rugby 7s is the latest) as the State Government sprouts its vision of how we will be centre of the events world in years to come. Meanwhile, in the interim, home grown success stories just disappear as seems likely to also be the case with the Hopman Cup in the west.

For those full of the belief that the Adelaide Oval redevelopment will deliver a utopia of inner city sport for them and their children to attend with no other costs to bare in the community ought to seriously reconsider their views before it is too late and we too possess that nasty token of vision over reality, the great White Elephant that we all have to pay for.

[Waewick]

there are some amazing assumptions there.

Just because WA didn't get it right, that doesn't automatically mean SA can't.

From what I understand and remember didn't the WA government got through a heap of corruption inquiries into the governmnet including a couple of leaders being kicked out of the party for questionable activities?

what are RAW suggesting that is going on here?

Why can RAW make assumptions on the negative and others make assumptions on the positive?

Given the articel states the project was purely government run, how is this similar to 2 independent bodies (SANFL and SACA) working with the Government (and the AFL on the outside) ?

How is adding more facilities a confession of a non world glass Western Grandstand?

Why do they keep saying cost blow of 30% - it wasn't a blow out.

How is a the project a White Elephant when it is going to be used a minimum of 40 AFL games, Host Internation cricket to the score of 1 Test, 2 ODI and 20/20 as well as a number of domestic Cricket 20/20 ODD FC games as well as Soccer matches?

If so - wtf is AO and AAMI now?

I'm not saying we shouldn't check , but FFS these guys confuse me.

[Pants]

In response to the RAW bollocks...


So the answer is to do nothing then?

We’re not going to get a fully privately funded stadium either at Adelaide Oval, West Lakes or a new site, so instead of running the risk of cost blow outs and poor stadium management, should we just sit on our hands?

As public dollars are at stake at a time when people are tripping over cracked footpaths, perhaps we should form another task force or call open-invitation monthly meetings with Mr and Mrs Average Punter and fuck around for another 2 years in hope that someone will tick every single box there is to tick to make sure that this is the first 100% risk free development in history.

[Waewick]

like your style Pants

[rev]

An interesting development: Mike Rann has announced that AO will host an international soccer match in June this year.

This news is several weeks old now.
They are trying to lure Serbia last I heard.