Melbourne's third major AFL stadium planned for near Docklands

[BulldogBelle]

Interesting article...

Melbourne's third major AFL stadium planned for near Docklands
The Herald Sun
Stephen McMahon
April 30, 2009


A THIRD major footy stadium could be built close to the Docklands as AFL clubs struggle to make money at Etihad Stadium and the MCG.

The State Government is preparing to sanction a $2 million feasibility study into the development of a 40,000-seat stadium at the old E-Gate site - just down the road from Etihad Stadium.

It follows reports some clubs will be forced to pay to play matches at Etihad Stadium this season after venue management withdrew commitments to provide fixed returns.

The AFL has already taken Etihad Stadium management to court and is in a major stand-off with the MCG Trust.

The Herald Sun believes Premier John Brumby is actively investigating the third-stadium proposal ahead of next week's state Budget.

Mr Brumby is believed to favour a new stadium as part of a residential and commercial development at the 20ha site. The disused railway land is owned by government authority Vic Track, but will be surplus to needs from 2014.

The government is believed to be considering a plan to give the stadium site to a developer who can guarantee to have a new AFL ground up and running by 2017.

The Vic Track site is opposite the broken Southern Star Observation Wheel and close to North Melbourne train station, which is being upgraded.

The prospect of a new stadium could prove a trump card for the AFL as it attempts to negotiate better deals for the clubs.

Clubs such as the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne face a sharp drop in revenue as the home side at Etihad Stadium if their crowds fall below 40,000.

The $2 million government grant to Major Projects Victoria in next week's Budget will finance an investigation into the feasibility of a stadium and the development of up to 2000 residential units and 240,000sq m of office space.

The focus will be on environmentally friendly and socially affordable housing.

A government spokesman confirmed the $2 million budget for the site study.

"A range of ideas have been put to the government," he said.

"The Brumby Government will ensure that appropriate planning is carried out so that the site is put to the best possible use.

"It is an important strategic site and the government will consider a range of uses."

[LostDoggy]

I find this hard to believe. Its just a threat to the Docklands and MCG admin.

[Mantis]

Clubs such as the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne face a sharp drop in revenue as the home side at Etihad Stadium if their crowds fall below 40,000.

Everything I have read so far has indicated that we get a flat rate 'profit' regardless of crowd size. I think it was $45,000 for games against Melbourne based teams & $15,000 for games against interstate teams.

Why do journalists consistently get these things wrong?

[bornadog]

Everything I have read so far has indicated that we get a flat rate 'profit' regardless of crowd size. I think it was $45,000 for games against Melbourne based teams & $15,000 for games against interstate teams.

Why do journalists consistently get these things wrong?

That deal ended in 2008 and docklands are refusing to have a flat rate fee. Its currently under negotiation.

[Mantis]

That deal ended in 2008 and docklands are refusing to have a flat rate fee. Its currently under negotiation.

So why did Smorgon come out after the Richmond match on Easter Monday and say that we made $1 profit for every patron that attended the game (crowd was 45K) ?

[aker39]

That deal ended in 2008 and docklands are refusing to have a flat rate fee. Its currently under negotiation.

Which based on our 1st 2 games we should have made good money.


Anyhow, I think Sydney Celtic will play at this new stadium.

[Bulldog4life]

So why did Smorgon come out after the Richmond match on Easter Monday and say that we made $1 profit for every patron that attended the game (crowd was 45K) ?

If I remember at the start of 2009 Etihad Directors were allowing the previous agreement, which ran out at the end of 2008 and netted us $45,000 from the Richmond game this year, to continue this year. But "after" the Richmond game they announced that they won't be continuing with that specific deal for the rest of 2009.

Hence if our crowds are very low we'll have to pay them instead of receiving the minimum of $15,000 which would have happened under the 2008 agreement.

[LostDoggy]

That should put a rod up Collins.

[Pembleton]

Why is this new deal being painted in the media as some sort of disaster for the Dogs and other clubs?

The flat rate deal is the one that has been killing us, because we could never make decent money from a home game at Sponsor Dome. We'd be on life support forever if the best we can ever get from a game at our home ground is 45k.

[bornadog]

If a new stadium was built, they wouldn't start till 2014 and finish in 2017. When does Docklands revert to AFL ownership, 2020?

[hujsh]

What is the current deal then? What would we get if we had 40 thousand+

[LostDoggy]

The ridiculous part about all this is that of course, that there used to be plenty of other football-only oval stadia around town, but they were all shut down for this ridiculous 2-stadiums-for-10-teams deal, and now we want to throw good money after bad to improve a bargaining stance? Why can't authorities ever admit that they just screwed up and revert back to some semblance of what used to be status quo?

The Whitten Oval has been recently upgraded, and isn't all that far away from the North Melbourne station as it is. What's the point of building a whole other stadium within 5 kms of WO, when a further upgrade would easily bring its capacity to 40,000 and be an even bigger boost for the west?

And what about Princes Park? There's a white elephant just sitting there and no real plan of using it to capacity (I am well aware of the 'development' there, but that's just a stopgap), and instead of coming up with a workable plan to solve that conundrum, the state government is just going to use our money to build another one-dimensional, one-sport monument that is used once a week and sits there useless the rest of the time? In the middle of a recession and plenty of other spending priorities struggling for funds?

I am so tired of this industrial age type urban planning of building monumental rubbish and unintegrated infrastructure (just about all of Docklands and the ridiculous Wheel), while ignoring proven, cutting-edge, integrated, local-scale urban design methodologies being rolled out in other parts of the world. (See China's planning of the Olympic sites, which were built in already existing and functioning community hubs and planned to immediately be turned into residential blocks upon the end of the Games.. an example of purpose built, time-sensitive, intelligent, integrated design).

[LostDoggy]

Anyone play Sim City? Our local and state governments do precisely all the wrong things. Sprawl, cut public spending, build useless monuments, prioritise 'status' projects over good planning, fall under the spell of gambling money at the expense of social cohesion ...

We're just lucky we have so few people and so much space, and so much money (built on the backs of agriculture from all the spare space we had and more recently, resource mining, instead of any intrinsic innovation or value add of our human resource). The incompetence of this government would destroy cities the scale of Tokyo or New York.

[ledge]

If this new stadium is built, who will be the owner?
Whitten Ovals problem is no room for car parking for 10,000 let alone 40,000.
Wasnt the original AFL Park going to be built where the baseball stadium is now?

[LostDoggy]

If this new stadium is built, who will be the owner?
Whitten Ovals problem is no room for car parking for 10,000 let alone 40,000.
Wasnt the original AFL Park going to be built where the baseball stadium is now?

This is a design issue, not a capacity issue. Plenty of stadia around the world are located in suburban/residential areas and works fine, as long as it is planned properly. Would still cost less than building one from scratch, not to mention the ongoing costs of maintaining an empty building for most of the week, while an integrated hub would be used during the week (many stadia have shopping centres in them, for example) and be potentially revenue neutral, if not profitable, on non-matchdays. Herzog and de Meuron's new Portsmouth stadium which incorporates a concert hall is an example (they also designed the Beijing stadium), which is a much more contemporary concept/understanding of a fully functional sporting arena.