Alternative Wellington Stadium

 How about building a smaller stadium on the land next to Westpac?

Not that comparable as Sydney has a population at 10x bigger than Wellington, but interesting that Sydney Football Stadium (opened 1988) only lasted for 30 years before NSW govt decided to demolish it and rebuild completely.

Maybe in 20 years WCC/Govt will have some spare funds, knock over Westpac and rebuild it as a proper rectangle!

I really think the chances of local government paying for a new stadium when there is a perfectly good [in their eyes] stadium sitting there in Westpac, as less than slim.

Look at it coldly, what are the complaints about Westpac?

1. Too big [better than too small]

2. Circular rather than rectangular [get over it, there are plenty of stadia like that]

3. No roof [wear a hat and coat]

4. Too expensive [user pays]

5. Crap food, crap beer [then don't buy it]

6. Not used enough [up your marketing]

7. Cricket don't use it any more and have moved to the Basin [well they can, the Basin was available to them]

Liken it to your own situation at home, my TV is too big and I would really prefer a smaller one. I don't have enough money to buy  smaller one and there isn't a spare one in the house. So I put up with the big one. I can still watch the same programmes but would rather watch on something I don't actually have.

I do agree with this one. It always confounds me that people in a sports stadium, can't withhold from eating/drinking for two hours.

Just don't venture in hungry! It's invariably shark unhealthy chow & it's expensive.

Used to watch rugby games at Lancaster Park many years ago with a mate who had to have about 2 plastic pints of crap beer, each half. He made about 3 toilet stops per game. Often missed some of the best action. Stupid as. 

Isn't point 7 basically the argument for a boutique stadium? Basin Reserve has a 13k capacity, when it's full it's lovely. 

NZ Cricket recognise they're not going to pull 35,000 people for most games.

Rather than the TV thing, let's talk about your home.

You live by yourself in a ten bedroom house. You have to pay the rates for a ten bedroom property, you have to look after the empty rooms and extra bathrooms. People don't like coming round that often because the place is so big and eerie, but occasionally you'll have a decent party that vaguely fills the joint. What do you do?

Answer: move out to somewhere that better suits your needs. 

Re: 5. Food and drink at Westpac are great.

Points 1 and 2 - studies show that atmosphere has a direct impact on subconsciously biasing refs towards the home team. Stadiums with fans further away (such as athletic tracks) reduced this bias and stadiums that were empty due to sanctions placed on the home team had no discernible bias.

also think point 3 is bs - when its raining and wind chill has it around or even below 0 that's a big no to many people. u20 WC at Wgtn it was 4/5 degrees and raining and that doesn't take into account wind chill.

Not wanting to get too silly but you don't own the house, your parents do and they are paying a significant mortgage.  They can't find a buyer for the property and can't justify or afford leaving it and buying a smaller place. They tell you to close off the rooms you don't need and put up with it.

I really don't think your arguments about atmosphere are enough for the authorities to fork out millions of extra dollars so we get more referee decisions going our way. Have a look in the USA at many of the college football stadiums - no roof and subject to snow etc - and that doesn't have a significant effect on crowd numbers. 

All of the points your raise are valid when starting from scratch but Westpac is there, was paid for by the ratepayers of the region and 'does the job' [if not as well as everyone wants] so we are stuck with it. I certainly wouldn't want to be paying for and building a new stadium if I still owned another one that I have no prospect of selling. Dos anyone know how much the region still owes on it and how much it would cost to mothball or pull it down?

The Westpac is already a dinosaur, like Eden Park. They were built for a crowd that existed twenty years ago, and was predicted to last a lot longer than it did. 

It's done well but in terms of hosting top events we're a whole big cycle from another cricket, league or rugby world cup, the sports that we have attracted top level comps to NZ. FIFA won't look at us for anything more than a junior world cup and current capacity just about does for that.

Tied in with the potential for the ABs (the reason we've got these massive honking stadia that don't suit anyone who isn't them) to hit the skids, looking at a sensible stadium plan for NZ - smaller grounds with expandable capacity is the way forwards - oh, and specialising ffs. Rectangle grounds for rectangle fields, a decent cricket ground etc)

Despite all of the criticism Auckland Council are attempting to do that but they have  lot of venues compared to the few in Wellington.

A lot of shark venues - Mt Smart the exception, it's just been cruelly defunded compared to the resident besieged Eden Park and the 'oh shark it's a baseball ground now' QBE.

A mid sized venue would be good for all of Wellingtons teams - Nix, Canes, Lions would all benefit economically from not having running costs of an unfillable stadium. 

I know of him, but what happened there? 

Shave 15k of seats off and we have Sportsville Stadium

Westpac Stadium will need a new name come end of the year - Westpac are giving up the naming rights.

why would you?

I did add a big car park. 

FFA - Stadium Size is the reason Roar are in financial crisis

Speaking of alternatives, whats wrong with Jerry Collins stadium? Could it do the job at A-league level?

Not without some serious additional building/work.

Only has a capacity of 2000 if I recall correctly. 

Thats awesome how they have a rectangular shaped stadium thats only 2000 seats and its a 30 minute walk from the Porirua station. This is what the Handy teams need.

Might aswell close this thread there's clearly no alternatives in Wellington

Weenix used it this season and got "crowds" of around 70

but it is a good venue and I think thats where Western Suburbs would play if they managed to get a team under their own name into the Handy

Porirua rectangular? Not really. The existing stand is quite a long way from the pitch too. It's actually not a great place to watch football.

you're just used to Davey F where you are basically on the pitch!

it's not that far probably closer than Newtown is and definitely closer than westpac

I'm not sure 'not as shark' as Newtown or the stadium should be our aspirational goal.

never said Newtown was shark, I think its a great venue (I am biased though :-) I just said the distance from the stand at Porirua to the ground is closer than it is at Newtown.

As the Wgtn city council delay covered arena on water front.

?

@InterMiamiCF submit final Freedom Park stadium plans. https://t.co/yWMYs0tbK5 pic.twitter.com/g3y1lD6BPp

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) June 6, 2019

Where did you read they had delayed the indoor arena?

that looks like a horrific stadium, but unsurprising in the US. Not famed for their taste in stadia.

Because of the unexpected cost of having to strengthen the library the council voted to delay the arena. It sucks but there is only so much money available and the library is a well used and needed facility.

Stick a couple of books in a pocket on the back of every seat.

2 birds....

 City defunds Wellington's indoor arena in last-ditch attempt to pare back budget

Missed that in the press, big shame tbh. That arena is needed to stop the city missing out on stuff and going to other cities. But  I guess there's plenty of pressure from rate payers.  

Sorry, I know this is a completely separate topic given it was never going to be used for football.

it could be a sliding roof arena with interchangeable surfaces - Becoming common around the globe

Where would you put the books when the roof is open?

I'm here all week try the veal...

seriously though we have to strengthen the library and the wcc building next to it and then the old townhall. So 3 buildings on the corner of wakefield and Victoria st. The Wellington council are going to have to put up rates for us the rate payers just to do this....if someone wants a new stadium they should pay for it...

I get that, but it was never going to be large enough to do so.  Was always for basketball / ice hockey, not for football or rugby.  I'd be ok with rate payers paying towards it so the council makes some money, but agree with cranky that those 3 buildings need sorting. It's embarrassing that it's got to this point where the council have no public buildings.

Mate plenty of room at Westpac for the books. Put up shelves on the upper levels until the real library is sorted.

At Least we still have a stadium
The $729 million knock-down and rebuild of the Sydney Football Stadium has been thrown into chaos after the NSW government said construction giant Lendlease would not complete the project.Sports Minister John Sidoti said Lendlease had not been able to meet the government's requirements to rebuild the stadium on the Moore Park site on budget by 2022.

"The project budget for Sydney Football Stadium is $729 million which includes stage one [demolition] and stage two [reconstruction] works," Mr Sidoti said."Lendlease’s stage two offer did not meet the government’s expectations so we are looking for another builder in a competitive market."

The government announced in December 2018 that Lendlease was the "construction contractor" for the entire project.Stage one, the demolition of the previous stadium, which opened in January 1988, has been mostly completed.Lendlease on Friday evening released a statement saying they were pleased to have "partnered again with Infrastructure NSW on stage one of the Sydney Football Stadium redevelopment project.""Building social infrastructure in partnership with government is a source of pride for Lendlease and we look forward to supporting future projects,” a Lendlease spokesman said.Labor made the government's stadium policy a major focus of the March state election after polling showed most NSW voters were opposed to the government funding a new stadium 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-football-stadium-rebuild-in-chaos-as-lendlease-leaves-project-20190726-p52b7u.html?fbclid=IwAR1HX9IEZ7DRy_l0FjN5tQvn3nG6oq2omH4jvYB5jNzHlH-k6WMcYu8cGIE64% of original size (was 788x443) - Click to enlarge  

The remains of the stadium at Moore Park.CREDIT:BROOK MITCHELL

ARNIE= LEGEND

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West Melbourne and their dream stadium might have an issue financially.