parking is sht around nib when big crowd and a fair walk from nearest train station
Perth will eventually need a 30k rectangular stadium
$125mill didn't even get us half the stadium refurbed
Heritage issues mean future refurb is going to be a pain and costly
The infrastructure to Perth stadium is going to be amazing and rectangular sports could have benefited from that.
Horses for courses but a 600m walk from East Perth or Claisebrook Stations is a non issue to me. Granted modeling suggests in Australia walking drops as an option above a measly 400m. Parking certainly is shit but planners are certainly not trying to encourage cars.
Agreed that $125 million was very frustrating. The damn Stadium issue as you'll remember became a massive political football. Labor never settled on the rectangular stadium solution options presented in the taskforce report by the time they were kicked out of office. Barnett chose a staged rebuild of Perth Oval rather than the $300 million up front options of a rectangular stadium at either Burswood, East Perth power-station (also an option for the Football/Cricket stadium) or a total rebuild of the Perth Oval site (Hunt Architects had provided some relatively uninspiring designs for the latter).
The stage redevelopment has clearly stalled under current economic conditions and the average to poor crowds from the Glory and Force. It is very annoying as NIB Stadium will end up costing a lot more to finish while the Gov has legitimate excuses to not finish it for at least the medium term. It can't not be done though as the facilities on the western wing are antiquated, nowhere near up to speed in broadcasting and corporate requirements.
I'm not sure if the heritage issues would cause that much pain or additional cost. The tree aren't going anywhere but there's plenty of room regardless on the western wing for an additional 8000 seats and 2000 more on the northern end. Due to the shape of the block, any western Stand can't be a mirror of the eastern stand but a taller wedge shaped stand will fit. It's not that hard to have the heritage status of the Fred D Book Stand removed. As an example or 1950's civic Architecture, Perth has two more very similar examples at Lathlain and Leederville Ovals.
Out of interest we go shafted previously, when the Perth convention centre car park deal was done the company who got the rights were supposed to build a 25k rectangular stadium where the Perth arena is now. They were meant to pay for it as part of the deal. Somehow wiggled got out of it, on the hush hush, and it never got built and the arena was put on that land. Shame as it would have been a brilliant spot for a stadium.
That was a real stitch-up because the government was in bed with Multiplex. The Leighton Consortium was eliminated because they opted in their plans to redevelop the WACA with movable seating, the Gov stood by the excuse that they wanted a dedicated Rectangular Stadium. The Nexus Consortium's plans had the most impressive of Stadium of the 3 but they were eliminated because their Convention Centre was placed next door above the rail lines, the Gov wanted it near the river. So we ended up with the dullest of the 3 options in Multiplex who wormed their way out of building the stadium and blamed the Perth Glory.
I was very annoyed at the time but it's worked out as a great location for a more impressive building being the Arena. The site lacked the room to expand beyond 25 000 anyway.
