Auckland Council considers Eden Park's $100 million financial hole

Saturday, 16 February 2019

Eden Park has seen it all in sport - but 2020 and Covid-19 has brought new challenges

Auckland ratepayers could be called on for more than $100 million to keep Eden Park stadium in business for another decade.

The financial woes of the country's top stadium are not new but have been laid out in a confidential face-to-face meeting between the trust board that owns the stadium and councillors this week.

Auckland Council is already set this year to pay off a $40 million bank loan held by the stadium, and may also cover a $65 million shortfall in the budget for critical maintenance at the park.

The debate over Eden Park's future seems set to intensify.

Trust board chair Doug McKay told Stuff no request had been made of the council at the meeting, but the $65 million shortfall first revealed by Stuff was 'a factual.'

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The All Blacks playing France at Eden Park in June, 2018.

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All nine trustees and senior park management including the head groundsman, faced councillors behind closed doors on Wednesday for a 'workshop' to give the politicians a chance to directly quiz them about the stadium's plight.

The $40m loan bailout is already locked in, with the council having a longstanding guarantee to the ASB bank to repay it if the stadium can't - which it can't.

It is expected the council would charge Eden Park interest for a new loan clearing the bank debt.

The council has been considering a bundle of other financial support needed to keep the stadium in business, including the $65m maintenance shortfall, needed for new turf, floodlighting and other critical work over the next decade.

That is likely to become 10 annual instalments of $6.5m if the council agrees to cover it.

The shortfall and other grim projections of the stadium's future were laid out in a report commissioned by the council from consultants Ernst and Young, as part of the council's decision-making process.

Auckland Council has declined to release documents to Stuff on its own deliberations about how a bail-out of Eden Park might work.

Eden Park is not council-owned but the council is its only lifeline, as deficits could run-out to $80m including depreciation and interest.

The stadium is owned by a trust board. Five of its nine members are appointed by the Government, with others appointed by the Auckland Rugby Union and Auckland Cricket Association.

The five Government appointees were created when taxpayers pumped in $190m to revamp the stadium for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, but there is no ongoing Government involvement.

'I'm vary wary about spending more on stadiums – because there are requests all around the country,' Finance Minister Grant Robertson told Stuff in November.

'The long-term Government position is that the Crown does not fund operating costs for regional stadiums.'

The council is at the same time consider its long-running and troubled 'Venue Development Strategy' - a reshuffle of sporting codes around venues that it owns, starting with the shift of speedway out of its traditional Western Springs home.

A viable international-class stadium is part of that strategy, and until the council decides whether to pursue a new downtown stadium, that venue will be Eden Park.

Councillors in December voted down a plan to begin construction of a new speedway oval at Colin Dale Park, and a reworking of that proposal and a fleshed out Venue Development Strategy comes back to the council next month.

A key constraint on Eden Park's viability are council-imposed planning restrictions on the number and nature of evening events it can stage.

Councillors have been reluctant to relax those, partly due to a perception of opposition from nearby residents.

Two opposing residents' groups have both claimed to represent the majority of locals, and the pro-stadium Eden Park Residents Association will meet this week to consider ramping up its advocacy for a viable stadium, with more night-time events.

The chair of the Eden Park Residents' Association Jose Fowler told Stuff the group had been reactive in the past, but members were now talking of it as an 'army' that needs to mobilise and convince councillors there's local backing for the stadium's future.