Imagining a new stadium in Canberra? Fuggedaboudit! Photo: GHDWoodhead.
With Canberra Stadium set to be patched up again to keep it going as the city’s major sporting venue, at what point will it be deemed unusable?
Will it be when the NRL or Super Rugby or potentially A-League declare they don’t want to play games there anymore?
The reality is that it won’t happen now as ACT Government funding to the Brumbies and the Raiders is tied to playing games at Canberra Stadium.
So, if they want to move games away from Bruce, it will be at their financial peril.
The solution, it appears, is to continue to refurbish Canberra Stadium with the mindset that a new build is seemingly financially out of the reach of a city this size.
Last week, it was proclaimed that a new stadium at Bruce could cost up to $1.86 billion while a new 30,000-seat stadium on the Civic Olympic Pool site could cost close to $3 billion, with these price tags based on projected rises in the cost of construction.
The figures seem quite extraordinary when compared to the costs of other stadiums built in Australia in the past six years.
Parramatta’s Bankwest Stadium cost $360 million – a bargain at twice the price, compared with a new build in Canberra. Photo: Bankwest Stadium.
Bank West Stadium, the home of the Parramatta Eels with a seating capacity of 30,000, cost $360 million and opened in 2019.
Meanwhile, the 61,000-seat Optus Stadium opened in 2018 with a construction price tag of $1.6 billion.
It could well be that Canberra missed the boat in getting a new stadium for the time being due to inaction, given that the ACT Government first raised the idea in 2009.
Costs have now blown out to such an extent that it may simply be too expensive, coupled with the fact that a new stadium, wherever it is to be built, continues to drop in the list of ACT Government priorities.
At one stage, it was going to be a covered stadium at the Civic Olympic Pool site, and then Exhibition Park became an option before returning to the current location at Bruce.
Then, it became dependent on Canberra getting a men’s A-League team.
I’ve lost count of the number of feasibility studies into the stadium. It has reached the extent that there is stadium-feasibility-fatigue among most Canberrans.
There is also now a perception among many that it will never happen and Canberra Stadium will be in a state of perpetual refurbishment.
I am starting to believe this is the fate of Canberra’s stadium.
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