$40-45 Million Soccer Specific Stadium - Petone Phoenix

approx 700m

You made me do maths for nothing!

:)

so it is about 200m further than present? That'll be a gamechanger.

If you get a bus to Jackson St you've saved yourself some walk time

Quicker by bus, 200m further by train. 

Sounds great. 

I even think pubs will be marginally closer to the stadium than they are now. Bigger range of pubs too. 

Yeah, but you're not on here as much any more. That's as good as it gets round here most days

I'm more of a...

I'm nearly always here.  Just satying out of the debates so I can resist excessive use of the word *&(^tard

What the hell? That's an extra 1 min walk from either Petone or Ava station!

What a fucking liberty!!!

I'm oot.

That'll be the front page of Stuff tomorrow.

A picture of Duncan Bannatyne?

Oh, the map.

Ideal world in 1990s: Regional stadium constructed, on Westpac site, purpose built for football with structural provision for future addition of roof. Scalable (e.g. two tiers) capacity. Basin upgraded for "oval" sports.

Current options:

Do nothing substantial and fix fringe issues (e.g. food and beverage) with current stadium. This option doesn't fix the fundamental problems that the stadium is not fit for purpose (i.e. fan experience) for football and has a uncompetitive (with other venues outside Wellington) cost structure.

Look at the cost of being able to modify (on a temporary basis ala Etihad) Westpac to a rectangular stadium. This option addresses the fan experience weakness but would only add cost to the already uncompetitive cost structure. This is Harmon's suggestion and should be looked at as a basis for comparison at least.

Petone stadium. This option fixes the fan experience and cost issues. Consequence is regional rate payers get lumbered with a white elephant. Does however allow the HCC to leverage their balance sheet to invest in the Hutt before regional amalgamation and the consolidation of Council balance sheets.

Football stadium by Westpac i.e. on rail yards. This fixes the fan experience but, if it was run by the stadium trust as it probably would need to be for the WCC to support it, it would make the cost structure worse as they would try and pass on the cost of the white elephant. However great location if run privately or at least separately from Westpac.

Newtown stadium: Rediculously difficult location to get to for the vast majority of the region.

My vote: Petone - anything else will never happen. Build it HCC rate payers before the other regional councils leech off your balance sheet. Bugger the regional rate payers of which I am one.

I fucking love this.

Save them some work

If I could change my desktop on my work machine I would Special One.

Well played.

What have I started?

Great LoLs HN and Christo.

Christo do you need more work to do?

That Facebook page has already started with 'won't somebody think of the children'.

It will be Nimbyd down in months.

At long last the Westpac Stadium Trust are starting to take this seriously. One of their lackys making a first appearance and one that like certain a Labour MP, needs to front up with some facts and not asertions. For 7 years that Stadium Trust have taken the piss with their shit catering, ship drink prices and shit  $30 car parks. Only this season have ST holders have been given a break in that respect for car parks. 

Now they realise this might not just be saber rattling, they come out sqwarking foul ball. Next up someone suggests Newtown Park and I'm sure resource consents and all that would get rushed through. Amazing how they can now come to the party table. Was it because it was also suggested that rugby and rugby league might also have had enough and are thinking of supporting a shift?

Thats right you Westpac Stadium ripoffs, you have every right to feel a little nervous. Time to stop fleecing everyone. You should have been reinvesting in the stadium but you didn't. 

I also note that the stadium was built on the promise of getting some big acts, bands there. Apart from a few concerts, where are they? The locals oppose noise after 7pm and thats it, no one comes. Bruce Springsteen would have filled the stadium but instead he has 2 shows in Auckland. 

Oh and if any of the stadium trust do read this, fix up your website. When one types up a thoughtful complaint and hits send, your complaint form comes back "error 404, thaais page does not exist". A great way to keep ones temper under control. 

Phil was trolling.  If it had been a Heart fan instead of a City fan he would have been banned well before I called him a bad name.

I like Shane Harmon and think he is doing his best and I don't want to run him down in any way (in fact if this new stadium gets built he'd be a prime candidate to be CEO!).

When he said in the paper today that "a multi-million dollar upgrade of Westpac Stadium should be considered as part of the debate around the proposed Petone Arena" he's right of course. But what also needs to be part of the debate is much more information and clarity for Wellington rate-payers about how the stadium ownership, governance and funding works. I know that this info is contained in annual reports and trust deeds and whatever but this all needs to be brought to the fore so that people can easily understand what's going on and the potential pros and cons for Wellington of losing the Nix to Hutt City.

In fact, maybe that's the job of a decent journo. Do we have one available?

State Highway Two is on the other side.  Most of the intersections off Jackson st are small side streets.  Some of them barely one lane wide.

The only spot you would likely have a wait is to cross the road out of Petone station and it would only be as long as the lights take.

From Ava the only big cross is Cuba and that is (in Auckland terms) about as busy as a road like Old Mill Road but with pedestrian crossing options.

Shame I banned N-Bomb

Crossing state highway 2? Where?

To the Wellington City Council and to the Westpac Trust, I say the chickens are coming to roost. Even if this proposal does not go ahead, you all know there's a lot of people out there pretty pissed off with how as paying attendees to Westpac stadium are treated.