$40-45 Million Soccer Specific Stadium - Petone Phoenix

I went to the meeting, on the stadium proposal,  in Petone earlier tonight. When I get the copy of the concerns that were expressed I'll put them up for you to have a look at. 
MY feeling is I should be passing on more information but I'm not really sure where to start... I found it frustrating...  it was, I felt, just so full of negativity. 

My girlfriend said to me that if anyone says 'what about the children?" it would be worth thinking about leaving. About five minutes before the end someone finally said that the children had to be thought of...  

It's two hours of my life I won't get back.... 

Yeah I went along too. They had a couple of speakers to set the scene.

First lady basically tried to summarise the proposal so far along. Although suggested that cricket would be played at the stadium.

Second lady talked about the process the council needs to go through to get the project sorted, including opportunities for people to make submissions. 

Then the MC tried to summarise, which included a claim that the estimates of net benefit of projects are basically plucked out of the air. Then started to get people into four groups to talk about potential issues. Cost/economics; the impacts; process; loss of green space. Before this happened the Mayor tried to speak to the ground by noting inaccuracies in what has been said and offered to outline further information. He got talked over the top of by the MC who basically said this is a time for the residents to be heard.

As the groups broke off, I gave up as I knew what they group discussions would turn into.

While they have legitimate concerns, it clearly was just turning into a bitch session.  Complaining about the lack of information so far,and then rejecting the offer of info from the mayor was just bizarre. 

Interesting to get your perspectives on that meeting.  Thanks for sharing.

I am still slightly surprised that this is being seen as a serious option, but on reflection I guess for the 'Nix (and Lions and probably also the Hurricanes) it is a realistic thing to push, if the costs are as we are led to believe.  

I guess my skepticism really comes from being uncertain why the Council would be happy to fork out $25m.  Clearly there is work on that already done behind the scenes, but it would be good to get some insights on the economics of this from the Council perspective.

Also, no one has commented on my question about whether this might be unpleasantly windy, not being an enclosed stadium, and fairly low stands.  Is that because you are all too bullishly keen and don't want to think about that, or do you really not think it's an issue.   I remember many a day at Athletic Park with a southerly or northerly blowing through the end stands and I'd not want to go back to anything close to that.   May not be an issue, just asking.  The Westpac has it's disadvantages, but you'd want to know if Petone had any different disadvantages.

Not meaning to be negative with these comments, just a decent part of my business career has involved operational and financial risk management, so they are questions that come to mind.  And, besides, they are fairly obvious questions that I don't think have been covered in the discussions?

Wonder if he is being a bit clever with words there and distinguishing between the elected council and the council as an organisation. Given that a Council controlled organisation was alongside Morgan at the PC you have to think that there has been a reasonable amound of work done on it from an officers perspective within the council. Might just be that that work hasn't filtered up to the elected body.

There's obviously been 'work' done, to some degree. To have the council this enthused, and already have them dispelling myths around concerns from residents... etc, its pretty obvious that there's been regular and ongoing communication with Gareth and Co.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/hutt-valley/9759006/Locals-raise-concerns-over-stadium-plan

I don't see how it could/should/would be any worse than anywhere else - a lot would depend on the design I expect though it was always the northerly that would wind up (oun intended) there more than the southerly. Though that was also mainly in early and mid "summer" (I use that term loosely). And as Smithy said, anywhere in Wellington will have a wind factor - it's just a matter of what can be done from a design perspective to mitigate that.

The only way to eliminate wind would be to build a roof. Or build underground. Or in a giant bubble at the bottom of the sea.

Or a roof. But I dont really mind, watching aussies fly in from 30 degrees to play in the wind and rain is part of the beauty of it all.

Wind zones in Wellington range from medium, high, very high, extremely high, to SED (special engineering design required). On a windy day, there's a world of difference between lower and higher wind zones.

Westpac Stadium is in a very high wind zone. You can see on this map after selecting the 'Flooding and Wind Zones' box.

In contrast, the Petone Recreation Ground is in a medium wind zone. That's as good as it gets in Wellington. You can see it on this map after clicking on 'Live Layers' and selecting the 'Wind Zones' box.

Specific features of a site probably make a big difference though, like shelter from high sides. I'm no expert on wind.

Who lives in a stadium under the sea

Welling-ton Phoe-nix

Regarding the wind factor....my first thoughts when I saw the concept design was that having 4 stand alone stands would create wind tunnel effects in the gaps between. Not really an expert but it would seem better from a design point of view to somehow link the stands together so the wind would come over the top and not gust through the gaps. Especially on the western and southern sides.

I wonder if there is an option B in this proposal. Because the objections seem to be cost and loss of green space.

Gareth talked about having two stands of 5000 capacity north and south with two stands east and west each of 1000. A cheaper option would be to build a 6000 seat southern stand only. The 1000 capacity western stand already exists. So you then have permanent covered capacity of 7000.(which is a small to average Nix crowd) Temporary uncovered seating of 3 to 4 thousand could be put in for the summer on the North and East sides( Google Trafalgar Park, Nelson Rugby world cup to see how a temporary stand of 18,000 worked) That would give you a stadium of 10 to 11 thousand. It would be significantly cheaper. The temporary stands would only be up for 3 to 4 months over summer and the locals would get the majority of their green space returned to them when they were removed in April. Just and idea that would be way cheaper and keep more of the locals happy.

As an outsider I have wondered aloud for a while now if all the talk is about getting a better stadium deal .. or ... a real possibly of a new stadium..

My thinking at first was this is all about a new stadium rental deal ...

I have changed my mind .. it looks to me that this has a chance... there is no doubt that in today's market place the game day experience is important in growing memberships and crowds... a nice neat tidy 12 K stadium would as others have suggested also attract some rugby matches as well.

If I am correct my guess is YF make up 3 to 4 K of the Nixs crowd ... meaning the home end would be equal to RBB and the Cove when viewing on TV..

The biggest issue as with the local meeting is the NIMBY crowd [Not in my Back Yard] ..

Lets hope it gets off the ground and you guys are playing there within two years.

Membership is around 3k.  The fever zone is much less.

I was going to go back and look at the Facebook group but I was like:

It's not too bad HN, though the demographic that showed predominantly last night are unlikely to be regular Bookface users.

Someone needs to create a bunch of facebook trolls and bomb that page fronting as petone residents who are happy with the project. get a good cross section going (ie. a grandma with plenty of football mad grandkids, a struggling immigrant business owner on jackson street looking for much needed increased custom, a cuzzy bro petone rugby player and his 'boiz' who are all 'keen az', perhaps even one of these aforementioned smelly hippies a couple of pages back...)

http://www.melaniphy.com/content/impact-stadiums-and-arenas

This is an interesting US article from 1996. Still relevant and worth a read.

Article is 18 years old and yet this is in there;

"Concession sales have increased dramatically over the past ten years as more stadiums have focused upon foodservice. Many stadiums have tripled food concessions and added full-service restaurants."

Spotless left the US in '96 and came here!

Why cant they do a square stadium with rounded corners?  Thus enclosing it and stopping any wind tunnel. At Westpac the wind swirls because of the stadium design. Be interesting to see how a square stadium is affected. 

Spotless, oh dear. USA's loss is our unfortunate gain.

I'm thinking of forming a new action group to stop it happening. "Citizens United - No To Stadium". This is what our name will be. 

(Waits for the usuals to show no sense of humour.)

Cricket is one of the main  reasons for Westpac being the shape it is. Sadly the Blackcraps failed to turn  up decent performances and the crowds dwindled. Although this season may bring a change in that with some inspiring results against good opposition of late.

Citizens Against Re-Location Of Sport (CARLOS)

At least you understand my humour. "Movement Opposing Stadium Structure".

Heroes Into Cursing & Kicking Shit

Brothers Opposing Xenophobic Alternative Likely Location.

Fight All Relocation Tenders. Sorry had to add that one.

Look Everyone Opposed - Leo.

Society Against Colosseum for Kickball - Real Independents Can't Keep Immobile