• John Stensholt

  Editor, The List

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/unique-stadium-for-western-united/news-story/e8998546365a1acb8b79d5582f06ec22

A planned $180 million soccer stadium in Melbourne’s west will be the first major facility privately built for an Australian team and is set to have the steepest gradient in the country and a distinctive roof modelled on its local area.
A-League expansion team Western United, which will enter the competition for the 2019-20 season beginning in October, is finalising plans for the stadium they want to be playing at during the 2021-22 season in the western suburb of Tarneit.Western United management is finalising plans for the project, which will be built by construction giant Probuild and is set to be funded by the proceeds of nearby residential property projects, including in some high-density areas, and underpinned by a commercial zone which will sit adjacent the 15,000-seat arena.

A nearby railway station is also planned, with a town centre potentially being developed by the council. Investors could emerge with ownership of assets worth tens or hundreds of millions more than their initial outlay.

It could make annual profits and investors could later sell their stakes for capital gains. It is hoped the entire project will be built within about six years.

How steep we going here?

Some club has to build a Thunderstruck arena soon

Wow that sounds a brilliant Football stadium

BankWest currently claiming we have the steepest available in Oz atm. It would be interesting to see how it pans out.

“a distinctive roof modelled on its local area.”

ummmm... yes, flat and lifeless... how inspiring :)

It honestly seems that they said to the architecture firm, ‘I loved your work with Bankwest Stadium, so just reuse the blueprints, increase the seating rake, scale it down in size and add a cheaper, less interesting roof.’

Great to see a club that will have a football specific stadium, but can’t help wonder what the ownership structure will be in terms of the club and stadium. Will they be one and the same, or a more complex funding deal to potentially appease investors? We wait and see, as we have no idea who actually owns this club now.

Yawn... been hearing the same thing for the last 6 months. Maybe one day when they run out of concept photos they might actually build it

Fuck that, go full Quidditch World Cup steep. 

I agree it was worded terribly, but overall I think it’s a smart idea. Governments these days spend a fortune building stadiums in an attempt to outdo each other. What we need is practical football stadiums with less bells and whistles that are cheaper to build. Dick measuring contests are not necessary.


Well if you had your ear closer to the ground, you would have read the announcement yesterday that they plan to turn the first sod of dirt around the same time the HAL season starts in October this year. There is a paywalled Australian newspaper article about it. 

It is hoped the entire project will be built within about six years.

You would hope that the stadium part of the project does not complete in 6 years otherwise lots of egg on face.

Nevertheless, $180 mill for a 15,000 capacity stadium indicates it will be of high quality.

Step 1: Fish where the fish are. Choose another metro team due to the population
Step 2: Have them play out of the smallest capacity stadium in the league of all teams and rival bids

Step 3: Play in an appropiately sized stadium.

Unlikely at this stage.
Maybe they might break ground in October 2020.
Throgh the normal process, if they commenced trying to get approval today, and no-one objects, it would take at least 3-4 months to get approval. 
If they want to break ground this year, there will need to be a Ministerial call in to approve it.
I don’t see any appetite for that at present.

Oh I get it. You mean lower the benchmarks to match the low standards?

When somebody walks into a restaurant and they see only 2 four seater tables side by side, they dont think "Wow! What an appropriately sized restaurant for the number of patrons"

The stats in the article suggest 2 things:
1/ WU have no intention of growing beyond a small sized fan base
2/ They plan to be in the league for a long time as a small club which means 1 less vote for P/R

Isn’t there genuinely nothing there right now? I mean, it’s sheep paddocks?

no roads, no shops, no people. 

This is thing will take years before it takes shape. 

$180m for a 15k stadium? Feel like we should be able to build two for that price.

hope some of the shops/commercial building is included in that.

There's really no win, is there? If they build a 35k cavern and they get ~10k a game you'd be bleating about how the game needs more boutique grounds to build atmosphere and interest.

It's beyond me how some people on here can turn a privately funded and owned football stadium into a negative. 

It might include the academy buildings and training pitches.

Never said that is a requirement for the game

Do you renovate your house based on the number of guests?

Wow I can't believe people are whingeing about this .Surely this is a great thing we would want to see more of  ?
15,000 seats is probably appropriate for a new club. Since when does that mean they will stay small forever ? If they end up filling that stadium every week they would be making money and it would rock atmosphere wise.
I wish we could have one in Brisbane but maybe a 25,000 seater as we are (at present) a one team city with a growing population.
I would be happy with Suncorp putting sails up to curtain off the top tier but I wonder if the lighting may be a problem as they are all on the roof rim of the top tier.
Sails may block some of the lighting.

I still sceptical that this whole thing will go ahead, however I'm only sceptical because it sounds too good to be true. 

15k football purpose stadium with plenty of room for future redevelopment to increase capacity. A stadium owned by the club, most likely will have the best surface due to only one club playing on it, and close to a future train station. 

The only thing missing is a club house near by to top it off. I really hope this goes ahead. And hopefully once completed the derbies are kept at this stadium because that's one great way to increase memberships. 

Yup, would take a 15k stadium over a soulless 50k stadium any day of the week.

NSL Task Force Report 2003.

• Venues
– Boutique stadiums with capacities of 10,000 - 20,000 and meeting minimum standards should be used.
– Atmosphere is a key element in the selection of match venues.
– Stadium economics should be a consideration.
– Stadiums should be well serviced by public transport.
– Stadiums should provide clean signage, as well as concession rights, to enable maximisation of their effectiveness.

Location would have gone against a few NSL venues at that time.

Knights Stadium for instance is very poorly serviced by PT, whilst I would say the sand would have been true for Marconi and Sydney United’s grounds.

Overall, I think this WU Stadium is the right size for the club. It is apparently expandable, and with a less complex roof structure, it should be a bit less of a challenge to go through that process than it would for s venue like AAMI Park.

hope this a success and the first of many

I build a house for the amount of people I expect will be living there. 

And future proofing

You only have to look at the WSW situation to know that entire stands cant be flown and assembled over night. And if their stadium is then deemed to be too large because they hit a slump they have to go through the process again

Venues should be built based on potential size and growth, and to accommodate the largest events they want to host (such as Socceroos or Man Utd). Spending $180m to build a venue based on a guess of what will look good on TV due to the current declined interest is idiotic

There is no difference between a closed off top tier or no top tier in terms of having fans seated together, and little difference to overall venue maintenance. Either WU will be a success and be without a venue after their first season there, or they will be another team attracting 8k-9k per game which makes me wonder why Canberra or Tasmania didnt get a go

And what if they've determined that they're probably only going to average ~12k or so a year considering that Victory/City already have relatively established fan-bases in the West. Which is perfectly acceptable imo, that would be greater than the majority of the league and would look fantastic in a boutique stadium. The only time I see demand exceeding capacity is when Victory come to play, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for looking great on TV/at the ground. You only have to look at Brisbane and WSW this season to see how damaging playing infront of swaths of empty stands is.

Life must be pretty miserable for you being so negative all the time. It's a privately funded boutique stadium ffs, something that everyone on this forum has been crying out for for years. Did you complain this much about AAMI only having a ~25k capacity? 

15 000 is perfect for them. Isnt it still bigger than Hindmarsh too? We have been crying for boutique stadiums. They are not going to be another WSW.

They will be 8-9 thousand crowd side. And they are in over Canberra and Tas because of tv deals and money. 

And they wont be competing for man united games or socceroos. There's no way they would play in some suburban stadium instead of AAMI. And it's not the clubs responsibility to build a stadium to attract events to the state to compete with other states.

I can’t believe it either. It’s a wonderful proposal, right size providing excellent facilities for the fans and corporate.

Have to laugh at Bluebird making comparisons with seats in a restaurant when there are no TV viewers in that circumstance. Desperate and ridiculous as always.

15k looks pretty damn good to me as far as size goes.  If it gets built to that capacity, and is fully funded privately, be thankful.
AS someone said above, a clubhouse either on site or very close would top it off.
I admit it looks too good to be true, and the whole thing still looks a bit dodgy.  Let's just see what hspperns