Island Life: The One Minute Stadium
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There are some very important questions about process and opportunity here. The waterfront is one of Auckland City's prime assets, and it is incredible that we are being forced into rubber stamping either a hastily thought out stadium, or sinking more money into Eden Park.
If we're finally allowed to get rid of the container port from the CBD (and please, please say that we are!), surely this is a once in a lifetime chance to reclaim the space for the public.
Lets take this chance to combine the tank farm and whatever wharves we can into a public space that provides a natural environment (eg. trees, grass, gentle hills, water access) to compliment the business district as it meets the water. Think Battery Park, Botanical Gardens, Mt Victoria etc.
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Where ever the new stadium is it will look a little silly (and half empty) if the All Blacks don't make the 2011 Final...
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This is so depressing. I can just see this oppurtunity to create something truly great for Auckland city, being ruined once again by wowsers and petty politicking.
Whether or not you like the All Blacks or rugby, the All Blacks are a global brand recognised around the world for their pursuit and achievement of excellence. A national stadium woul be a temple to that pursuit. A symbol of a country with vision, courage, and a desire to be great.
Every great city around the world has a stadium which is part of the very fabric of their society . Eden Park would just be a symbol of our suburban greyness, never anything on, gates always locked, dull dull dull.
Those who say the money would be better spent on public transport fail to see that a stadium would give people a reason to come back into the CBD in the first place, and an improved transport system would be a natural progression.
I also believe it's time in this cynical age we showed a little faith in our elected government. Trevor Mallard does not want to see this stadium fail. If he says it can be done lets get on with it and DO IT!!!!
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The Auckland City Council's comparisons page is interesting:
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/stadium/comparison.asp
I'm not sure if I believe the waterfront costings, but this part is especially interesting:
"Special legislation to bypass Resource Management Act needed for both options."
Can't recall reading that in the paper ...
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Ready for another option?
Via Peter Cresswell, check out the Waka Stadium
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Here's a genuinely visionary design statement for a waterfront stadium
not sure how the cost would stack up, but hey, why not
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Moz,
From Sydney the perspective looks a bit different. The Opera House is up for major refurbishment because it's never actually been suitable for opera and the users are getting sick of it. So after years of controversy as it was being built, heaps of whining afterwards because it's a better sculpture than music venue we now reach the point where we're asked to spend $700M to allow opera and dance to occur in the second hall.
Then we have Olympic Park, a concrete wasteland consisting of a large pit (where they burned the taxpayer dollars during the games) surrounded by rarely-used sporting facilities and a train station. More than 5 years after the games and we're *still* wondering whether there's going to be any further development aside from increased car parking (because Sydneysiders can't be expected to use public transport, that's for visitors and poor people). They gave us the venue for the Cycle Messenger World Champs for next to nothing because it was unused. Any other questions?
That said, Darling Harbour and surrounds does work quite well and the proposed site in Auckland is a hole just waiting for something useful to be built there. And sorry to break it to you aesthetes, a stadium is always going to look like a donut. It might look like a donut with decorations, but the donut is inherent in the purpose. Better to keep that shape than pretend that you're building a decoration then find that you can't fit the stadium into what's been built. Like they did with the Sydney Opera House.
My bias is towards the stadium as proposed, provided people focus on what it is going to be used for after the cup. There's definitely the option to combine the best of several ideas - surround it with public space, make sure the public transport is accessible and working, add things that will get used all the time (meeting spaces, offices, kayak rental as in Wellington, whatever), and I think you've got a winning concept. Perhaps even design it to resemble Southern Cross Station in Melbun or something. But don't screw up the basics. And don't let it sit in committee for 10 years like Te Papa, where it'll get abraded down to expensive blandness. I'd rather have one controversial designer than 20 committee members as long as the basic functions are there.
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Genius! I can't believe no-one thought to do this before now. What's the one thing Bob 'The Builder' Clarkson is an expert on? Building a stadium, of course. He's done it, and he's done it in a hurry. And what does he reckon this one would cost? Plenty
How much for the Waka version, I wonder?
I might also say that I have read Mr Reid's contribution to the debate and I have emailed to tell him that he is one truly evil man.
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Stadium Australia is not a great example for Auckland to follow: with a debt of A$140m it's just been sold to its bankers (ANZ) for A$10m...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/debt-sinks-stadium-australia-anz-to-take-control-for-10m/2006/11/15/1163266637056.html -
Liz,
Kia ora tatou from Christchurch. I think the rational way to resolve the issue would emerge from an accurate answer to three questions, namely: 1. If the waterfront stadium is built, will it be the best possible use (for the public) of an area that currently has extraordinary potential? 2. If the waterfront stadium is built, will Eden Park become unsustainable - can Auckland in fact afford to maintain two city stadiums? 3. If a new stadium is built, will it be a beautiful, world-leading, COVERED (given your city's frequent tendency to rain), icon, to which people will flock not only for events, but also for the ambience, restaurants, public facilities and views? The trouble is, I fear the answer to my questions may be NO, YES, NO.
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I think Rod Oram said it all:
"Everything is wrong about this decision: the choice of location; the choice of funding; the wishful thinking about its impact on Auckland's economy; and the processes - marked by a lack of analysis and candour - by which the government is sucking itself into this black hole.
Let's get a few facts straight about stadiums. They are big, ugly and lightly used - Eden Park achieves about 15 days of sporting events a year. And because the facilities have to be so focused on sport, they are badly compromised for other activities.
The government is talking vaguely about turning it into a daily destination thanks to the likes of restaurants. But the sheer monolithic proportions of Stadium New Zealand would make it a very unattractive entertainment venue compared with the Viaduct.
A large stadium will dwarf the neighbouring buildings and ruin the waterfront vistas, not to mention curtail the activities of the country's main port. It would also be an absurd duplication of investment, giving Auckland a fourth imperfect and under-used stadium.
And anybody who thinks Stadium New Zealand can be built for $500m in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup is deceiving themselves and the public. Completed it might be, but only at a horrendously higher cost. Try $1 billion as a round number.
In promoting this waterfront option, Mallard and his colleagues have ditched any last vestige of rational analysis and judgement. For good advice, they need look no further than the summer 2000 edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, a US academic publication.
Its article "The Economics of Sports Facilities and Their Communities" has been doing the rounds. Mallard admits he was given a copy, but he hasn't read it. "The discussion's gone beyond that," he says.
Gone beyond rational analysis? The authors examined the 95 stadiums and arenas built or planned in the US in 1990-2000, at a cost of $US21.7 billion. And they reviewed all previous studies of stadium financing. They concluded there was "no statistically significant positive correlation between sports facility construction and economic development". The evidence contradicts the "unrealistic assumptions" of stadium promoters.
And to a distressingly high extent it is public funds that are wasted on these buildings. Rarely are running costs even met, let alone depreciation and financing charges.
It is impossible for cabinet to argue Stadium New Zealand could somehow fly in the face of these realities. Yes, we need a decent stadium for the world cup, but the more we spend on it, the bigger the mess.
And most worryingly of all, if we can't trust the government to be smart about a stadium, how can we trust it to be credible about economic policy?"
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I'm reminded of a tried and true parenting technique that I've used on many an occasion (don't tell my kids...). Give them the illusion of a choice: Don't ask "What would you like to do today?", give them a short list of options - "Would you like to go to the playground or the library?"; Or if you're sneaky, give them a hobson's choice - "Would you like to go to the library or the dentist?".
It works a treat.
Its working now.
At the worst, all the kids do is chip in with one more option - ("Why can't we use Carlaw Park?") Then you can use the parental veto - "make up your minds or we'll go to Christchurch instead".
Otherwise they end up faffing around for ages ("what about the tank farm, down by the Bombays, Whenuapai airbase, the Mt Wellington quarry, Botany downs, Mt Smart Stadium, etc), fighting amongst themselves, and wind up with nothing much happening at all - "stuff it, we'll stay home and play Lego Star Wars instead". -
I was just saying to someone in an email this afternoon:
I'm a bit irked that anyone who objects to the thing is damned as a dithering visionless wowser. Generally, I'm up for a punt. But just 14 days to resolve this? Do me a favour.
One useful aspect, though: it's been instructive for us all to get some direct experience of the Mallard style of bullying and intimidation.
Reading the preceding two posts, I feel entirely strengthened in my resolve. This is no way to go about it.
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Surely the decision to go ahead with the waterfront is not reliant on what happens above the platform to be built. Can we not decide to go with the waterfront option and then spend a couple of years debating the design of the stadium itself while the platform is built?
However, given the rather dismal. bleak, empty and windswept end of Princess Wharf, are we risking the same with a public promenade around the stadium? At the least it would need to be landscaped to provide a nicer destination than what has happened on Princess Wharf.
Eden Park is still faced with the fact that it is in a suburban environment which, let's face it, is crap. And there's no atmosphere anyway.
Carlaw Park gets my vote.
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Fancy that!
From Stuff:
SYDNEY: It was billed by then Olympics boss Juan Antonio Samaranch as the best stadium he had seen.
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But a decade after the disastrous float of Stadium Australia Group its banker, ANZ, will take control of the debt-laden stadium for next to nothing. In effect the bank has become a mortgagee in possession.
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wikipedia link for Suncorp Stadium
That there be a link to the wikipedia entry for lang Park, destination for Rob Fisher and some journalists on a free lunch to the max.
Never been to Lang Park but I notice from the text: "Suncorp Stadium is within walking distance of the CBD area of Brisbane". I wonder if that will be noted upon their return.
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Oh, Lang Park = Suncorp Stadium.
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Stadium Australia's not a good comparison at all. It's about 15km (in a straight line) from the Sydney CBD and there's nothing there. It would be like going to, well, North Harbour Stadium. The firm promised to develop amenities around it and couldn't. The better comparison is with Melbourne.
I don't think the American study is a good comparison either. A lot of US city stadia in recent years have basically been boondoggles for the benefit of sports franchises - ask G.W. Bush.
I think this is a bit different: One, national stadium for the big jobs. I like the proposal that it will house the family-friendly counterpart to the Viaduct. I love the idea of big events down there, of town lighting up after a big game, special ferry services for test matches, after-work 20-20 games, concerts, ceremonies and, hell, even Papal visits. I don't expect it to make money, but I don't think it will be Stadium Australia either.
Spending $400m on Eden Park is effectively a short-term investment - that location has no future, and any public money goes to enrich a private trust. Coming up with $1 billion for a big public asset that should last 40 years seems a better idea to me. If anything, I've firmed in my view: let's just build it.
Ha, David, this is the first time I can recall us strongly disagreeing about anything ...
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Ha, David, this is the first time I can recall us strongly disagreeing about anything ...
That's probably because I play only a careful selection of the country section of my iPod when you come to visit.
You're right, there are significant distinctions to be made. If Bob Clarkson's right, though, and it's more like 2 billion, then it might be interesting to see how the numbers look long term.
Just as an aside about Stadium Australia - and I presume I'm talking about the right one, we were there for a Bledisloe Cup match a couple of years ago, and got crap seats right up in the roof on half way. It was so high and so distant from the action, it was even hard to see the big screens. It was so bloody steep you wondered if you needed crampons, and the video ref wouldn't have been as well placed as us to call offside.
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here is a strange idea.
give the world cup to Japan,
they should have got it in the 1st place if the powers that be want to incourage rugby globally.
Then the government put aside a great dollop of money ($100m) so we could all go to a pub and spend it could keep all the bars in the area happy. Another dollop($30m) so that the small group that will attend any of the games can fly to japan and have a great time. And then the rest of the money could be spent on all the people who can't see or hear the games by giving them the appropriate operation .
If thats not a good idea build the white elephant on the waterfront, and give the few thousand around eden park a break including Helen. In 20 years time Eden park will be still in the worst place. -
I was a big fan of Carlaw Park as an option, but this Herald graphic
persuaded me that the space for a stadium simply doesn't exist on that site.Look at the size of the Carlaw Park area and the surrounding buildings and Domain (SE corner of graphic). Compare that to the area the waterfront stadium will occupy. Bit of a squeeze really.
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David wrote:
I was just saying to someone in an email this afternoon:I'm a bit irked that anyone who objects to the thing is damned as a dithering visionless wowser. Generally, I'm up for a punt. But just 14 days to resolve this? Do me a favour.
One useful aspect, though: it's been instructive for us all to get some direct experience of the Mallard style of bullying and intimidation.
Reading the preceding two posts, I feel entirely strengthened in my resolve. This is no way to go about it.
Well, hear hear from a fellow unpatriotic, effete NIMBY girly-man. :) Here's another question, do much of the current 'Build. It. Now' crowd (not looking at anyone in particular, Russell) feel the slight twinge of inconsistency about their new-found fondness for fast-tracking major developments largely out of public money, where there's next to no hard details on the table? Or is it only bad when the Nats hold the treasury benches, and there's right-wingers in the Town Hall?
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antv,
in the words of brian,
enough is enough! -
in the words of brian,
enough is enough!Yes, but the only reason Brian uses that particular phrase is that (a) there are only three words for his spectacularly dim supporters to remember, and (b) two of them are the same, making point (a) just that teensy bit easier.
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...there's next to no hard details on the table...
you're totally correct, there's no hard info out there, but there's never going to be unless we wait six months for detailed designs and pricings for either option. And i totally understand that people are pi**ed off because the whole thing has been rushed because someone fudged the cost estimate for eden park. And Mallard's a bully.
but it does seem that if we want to hold the world cup, we have to provide a 60,000 seater stadium like we promised. so the question is, do we spend about $4-700M on eden park, or $5-900M on a new one. and we kinda have to make the decision about now, because of the time to go thru resource consenting etc (see link below).
for what its worth, there's some info here - bear in mind, everyone's biased one way or the other:
Government Stadium Comparison
Auckland City Council website
Warren & Mahoney Architects
There was also a comparison of about 10 other potential sites i saw somewhere on the web too...
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