+x+x+x+x+xSo the AFL a billion dollar organisation would get another 240 million hand out? Yet people say we dont deserve more than ten million a year
The venue is not only for sports events and even with projected sports events the AFL usage is less than half.
Cmon. This is an afl stadium fair and square.
With morsels for the rest.
Do you really think that they would spend $715m on a stadium for 7 AFL games a year?
Unfortunately, yes.
They see votes in it. They are proffering the false argument the anti-development brigade are trying to stop an AFL team in Tassie.
Sports Minister, Annika Wells, doesn't see the necessity for a stadium. All the Tassie Federal Labor MPs and Senators are campaigning against it.
Albo has stated he wants to see a sound business case from the Tassie Rockliff Liberal government.
He has been burnt before. In the previous Gillard government, in his ministerial duties ( infrastructure?) he allocated millions to the Tassie Liberal government to develop the Macquarie Point area ( where the mooted stadium is supposed to be built) and the Bridgewater Bridge. The state Liberal government has done zilch to galvanise those projects.
I'm pretty sure Also won't get burnt again.
Your answer should have been "No". The AFL is projected to get 27.5% of total attendance at the venue. The projected average attendance at the Tassie AFL games across the state is 21k which is greater than both UTAS Stadium and Blundstone Arena can hold.
What was initially the plan was for UTAS to be developed by replacing the temporary stands with a single 2 tier stand. This would have increased capacity to 5k greater than at Blundstone and would have seen the 4 big drawing games played in the north, to replace the current Hawthorn games, while the other 7 games would have been played at Blundstone where capacity is effectively 19k. If after the settling in period it was found, as expected, that Blundstone's capacity was holding back attendance in the south then a CBD venue would have to be built.
For reasons known only to Premier Gutwein and the AFL the proposal was changed to building the Hobart stadium straight up.
The anti-development brigade is arguing against the Macquarie Point proposal but they are not the only ones. It has been interesting following the discussion in The Mercury online. The main argument against the proposed stadium is that "we already have 2 good stadium so spend the money on ...". For anyone who understands the trends in modern stadiums and fan expectations this argument is false. Neither of the existing stadiums meets what is built into a modern Tier 2 stadium and as both don't have the required capacity significant upgrading in both quality and capacity is required if Tassie does get an AFL licence. Also neither UTAS nor Blundstone is suitable for the uses planned for the multipurpose venue.
Albo already has the Business Case and has said his people are studying it. It is quite a thorough document with the site selection, demand analysis, costings and foundation assessments done by reputable consultants. I would prefer the TCA site but it has quite a few negatives as well.
Albo gave $50m to the Macquarie Point site to remove the contaminated soil and clean up the site etc which has (almost) been completed, eventually. The bridge has dragged on too but it is going forward now.
The costings surprise me. Based on stadium construction in Australia over the last 20 years I can't see how the initial figure of $750m was arrived at even allowing for half of the venue being over the river. The Business Case cites both Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast and the proposed stadium in Christchurch as examples of the type of stadium they are talking about. Metricon is a 25,000 seat oval stadium built pre Covid at $11k per seat. The stadium in Christchurch is a 30,000 seat multipurpose rectangular venue with a permanent roof and the contract price has come in at A$641m or $21.4k per seat. That is a very wide difference ie a factor of 2. The NZ contract price is a lot higher than their pre covid estimate and that may have been factored in to the Hobart estimate but even if it has the $21.4k per seat works through to A$492m for the 23,000 seat stadium proposed for Hobart. What brings the price up to the $715m stated in the Business Case? That price includes $150m for site works and a $64m allowance for rising costs. Until the design is reworked through the normal iterative process we won't know what the actual cost is.