Eden Park and Quay Park go through to next stage to become New Zealand's national stadium
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
The working group looked at four options to be a new, or improved stadium in Auckland.
Neither of the waterfront stadium options were successful. Quay Park is classed as downtown.
Councillors will vote on the working group’s recommendation on Thursday.
Quay Park and Eden Park 2.1 are the two successful proposals that will go through the next stage to become Auckland’s new or upgraded stadium.
A working group led by Councillor Shane Henderson will recommend at Auckland Council’s governing body meeting on Thursday that a feasibility study should be carried out on these two options.
If councillors accept this recommendation, it’s the end of the road for the two waterfront options at Wynyard Point and Bledisloe Wharf.
“The stadium working group is going to recommend that we move forward to a feasibility study for Quay Park and Eden Park 2.1 and test that against the BAU (Business as Usual),” Henderson confirmed.
“The other detail is that we were expecting a nine-month turnaround on the feasibility study, the quicker the better, but the thing is that it will be at their cost, so once again there is no ratepayers’ money going into it.”
The proposal for Quay Park is for the stadium to be a part of a precinct behind Spark Arena, which will also include an All Blacks hotel, shops, bars and restaurants. Eden Park 2.1, if successful, will have a retractable roof.
Richard Dellabarca, who was behind the Wynyard Point option, said it was disappointing to find out that they didn’t win over the working group.
“We’re surprised by what we’ve heard,” Dellabarca said.
“We haven’t been contacted and we await the outcome of the council meeting on Thursday.”
Henderson explained the reasons why the Wynyard Point and Bledisloe Wharf proposals were unsuccessful.
“For the two bidders that were not accepted at this time, we have land use issues where we’ve agreed to use the land for a different purpose,” he said.
“With Bledisloe Wharf, we’ve just done a Long-term Plan process and have consulted the public on using it as part of the port, to expand the cruise offering down there.
“That makes us a significant amount of money, so to repurpose it back again would be a real challenge for us financially and with it creditability issues.
“The other one was Wynyard Point and again, that’s been through a long community consultation process, in terms of a public park.
“It’s scheduled to see a lot of investment down there and it has been long promised to the residents and Aucklanders generally. So we have to keep our promises.”
Although the working group has recommended going to the next stage with Eden Park 2.1 and Quay Park, it’s down to how the 20 councillors and Mayor Wayne Brown’s vote at Thursday’s meeting that will ultimately decide which bids go through to the feasibility stage.
“They’ll vote on the recommendation. It’s a bit complicated because people can put up amendments,” Henderson said.
“But I haven’t had any inkling that that’s going to happen. Accept or reject will be the more likely outcome.
“For the two that have made it, the feasibility study will give us a lot more detail in terms of how they’re planning to raise the money, get people in and out of the stadium and those detailed points, so it’s the first step in a long journey.”
Although Thursday’s governing body meeting is open to the public, the stadium debate will take place towards the end of it, and behind closed doors.
“It was part of a discussion with the Mayor’s office and people running the committee,” Henderson said.
“There was an understanding that we do need a forum to talk about things that might be commercially sensitive, or that the parties may not want published widely, that they shared with us in good faith as part of that confidential process.
“I think we should try to be as transparent as possible and public as possible. So what I’ve gleaned from it is that we’ll get a decision released as quickly as possible after that confidential chat.”