CHRIS THOMSON
JANUARY 25 UPDATE: A $95.1 million overhaul of the jaded Perth Oval AKA nib Stadium has cleared its final planning hurdle.
The state government’s development assessment panel for Metro West approved the project yesterday, with the only sticking point being future links to public transport.
Panel presiding member Megan Bartle told oneperth.com.au that the Department of Sport and Recreation would be required to financially contribute to upgrading those links.
“I think it is important for the community that the [public transport links] work well in the future,” Ms Bartle said.
She said the contribution was not urgent because, under the revamp, crowd capacity would initially decrease – from the existing 21,254 to 20,441.
The ultimate ground capacity will be upped to 25,000 in later, Stage 2 additions.
Early last month, oneperth.com.au unearthed plans of the new stadium.
Construction is slated to start in June 2012 and be completed by April 2013.
The Department of Sport and Recreation will also have to fork out an extra $951,000 (one per cent of the project cost) for a public art project at the park.
Please leave all the Northern terrace standing room only.
The lower section does not need seating as overflow from the shed enjoy standing here.
Don’t decrease standing area and ruin the atmosphere with crap clickity clacky plastic seating.
By the time it is fully redevloped (if it ever is!) it will have cost over $300million. They could have built a brand new state of the art 30k seater AAMI style stadium alongside the AFL stadium at Burswood for less. Typical short term thinking by WA Govt.
Good to see the project going ahead though Ms Bartles comments are a little strange. I don’t follow the logic that transport links need to be improved outside the ground as a result of this project when the capacity isn’t changing – though her comment does infer it will occur at some stage in the future when the ground capacity increases. Even then, it appears it’s only going to increase by 4,000 people so I don’t see it will make much difference to transport demand.
I also can’t see the logic of dicatating almost one million dollars worth of supposed public art as a result of replacing the scaffold stand at the ground with a modern permanent roofed grandstand which will clearly have better public amenities in it. How much public art has the landowner, the City of Vincent, put into that precinct? I would rather the money be spent on improving amenities inside the ground for patrons.