Media release – Nic Street, Minister for Sport and Events, 7 July 2024
Macquarie Point Stadium designs released
Today marks a day many Tasmanians have been eagerly awaiting, the concept designs for the multipurpose stadium at Macquarie Point have been released.
Minister for Sport and Events, Nic Street, said he was excited to share the concepts.
“We’ve worked to design a welcoming, functional and uniquely Tasmanian multipurpose stadium, for this space,” Minister Street said.
“When completed, the stadium will be the largest timber roofed stadium in the world.
“While developing this stadium is an important step in realising our dream of seeing our own AFL and AFLW teams running out on our own field, this facility will offer so much more.”
The stadium includes:
- A 1,500-person function room with views to kunanyi/ Mount Wellington;
- A design informed by modelling cricket ball trajectory data to ensure we are ready to host the best quality cricket games.
- A stage pocket in the northern stand to support concerts and events, which will minimise impact on the field and reduce costs for event operators.
- Easy to follow and accessible design features – including a single continuous concourse that services the whole stadium, which means you can enter any gate and easily find your seat.
- A seating bowl design that will bring crowds closer to the action.
- Separated back of house and catering facilities with a below ground service road to separate vehicles and stadium visitors and users, to name a few.
The design features a low profile built-form and a woven-style façade that has been informed by the form and shape of the roundhouse structure that used to be part of the Hobart Rail Yard at Macquarie Point.
“The maritime heritage of the broader area has also been taken into account, and culturally informed under the guidance of Aboriginal community members,” Minister Street said.
The fixed, dome-shaped roof is an important part of the design.
“The transparent roof, which is supported by an internal steel and timber frame, provides an opportunity to showcase Tasmanian timber,” Minister Street said.
“The frame will support a fully transparent ETFE material, which is a plastic based material designed to have a high corrosion resistance and strength over a wide temperature range.
“This will allow light in, support natural turf growth, and avoid the need for large light towers.”
In addition to the concept designs, work is continuing to prepare an application to assess the multipurpose stadium through the Project of State Significance process.
A submission is anticipated to be made later this month.
As part of our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future, the Tasmanian Government has capped our expenditure on the stadium at $375 million.
The concept designs are available at www.macpoint.com/stadium.
Media release – Our Place Hobart, 7 July 2024
COX DESIGN FAR BIGGER AND FAR WORSE
Describing the Cox plan for the Mac Point stadium as an architectural catastrophe for Hobart and a financial disaster for all Tasmanians, Our Place spokesperson Roland Browne said the new design at 54 metres high is now 10 -12 metres or 25% higher than the government’s original highly controversial plan.
“Not only has this all the disastrous failings of the original plan, it’s now far bigger and far worse.
“The way it will dwarf the Cenotaph and tower over Sullivans Cove is even greater. This is maximum impact.”
“It’s unbelievable: it’s now some three storeys higher than the Grand Chancellor (40 metres) and some 6 metres lower than the Tasman Bridge (60 metres).
“The Premier said his stadium would be no more than 40 metres high and the same height as the Grand Chancellor. That was untrue.
“If Jeremy Rockliff can’t be trusted on height, how can you trust him with the billions of taxpayer dollars this is going to cost Tasmanians in job cuts and worsening health, housing and education?
“Talk of timber materials isn’t even lipstick on a pig—it’s lipstick on the greatest white elephant in Tasmania’s history.
“If Tasmanians were angry before, they will be outraged now”, Mr Browne said. “The community’s fight is only just beginning, and if AFL CEO Andrew Dillon wants to see homeless people chaining themselves to construction machinery on site, with the national publicity that focuses on the AFL, then that’s what is coming.”
Media release – Vica Bayley MP, Greens Sport and Recreation spokesperson; Cassy O’Connor MLC, Greens Member for Hobart, 07 July 2024
Stadium Design Highlights Impacts and Untrue Expectations
The release of Macquarie Point stadium ‘concept designs’ reveal a 25% blow out in the height of the stadium, expected to be the first of many examples where Government assurances are exposed as meaningless.
Notably, no impressions have been created to demonstrate visual appearance from the most revered and cherished sites that would have their values impacted, particularly the Cenotaph, the Derwent River and Constitution Dock. Stakeholders have been explicitly raising concerns about the visual impact from these locations, yet today’s revel is conspicuously silent on their impacts.
The new size of the stadium is over three times the height limits allowed for the Macquarie Point site and it would tower over the Cenotaph and historic Evans and Hunter Street buildings, creating unacceptable impacts on well-established and until now, well-protected values.
Quotes from Vica Bayley MP:
‘This is the first formal reveal of the size and shape of the stadium and it is 25% bigger than the Premier’s reassurance and, presumably the brief given to the architects.
‘Tasmanians can expect this to be the first of the Premier’s reassurances proven farcically wrong. Noone genuinely expects this stadium to be built for $715 million and that Tasmania’s investment can be capped. The deal with the AFL is clear, Tasmania pays for every single dollar of cost overrun.
‘Premier Rockliff signed a dud deal with the AFL, failed to secure GST exemption from the Feds and now celebrates a design that is 25% higher than he told stakeholders it would be.
‘As this farcical process proceeds, Tasmanians can expect more of Premier Rockliff’s reassurance to be utter delusion, including the negative impact on others, the cost to the taxpayer, the return to the economy and timelines by which it could be delivered.’
Quotes from Cassy O’Connor MLC:
‘There’s an old saying that you can’t put a shine on a cowpat.
‘These design images are an attempt to do just that but a stadium on Macquarie Point is still a cowpat.
‘It’s still the wrong project for this site.
‘It’s still a billion dollar folly Tasmanians would be paying for for generations.
‘It still points to a political choice by the Liberals to prioritise the AFL’s demands and a roof over football games instead of better hospitals and homes for Tasmanians.
‘Tasmanians deserve better. The people of nipaluna/Hobart deserve better.’
Media release – No AFL Stadium for Tasmania Group, 7 July 2024
COX DESIGN A DESPERATE DESIGN BY A DESPERATE PREMIER
The Cox plan for Mac Point Stadium is a crazy man’s fantasy and a dollar guzzling financial disaster for Tasmanian taxpayers.
The design is too big, 54 metres high which is 10-12 metres or 25% higher than the Rockliff government’s original plan.
The new look stadium will completely dwarf the Cenotaph, showing no respect whatsoever and it will tower and shadow over Sullivans Cove which will be detrimental to the area.
The stadium, if built, will be some three storeys higher than the Grand Chancellor, 40 metres and some 6 metres lower than the Tasman Bridge – 60 metres.
Tasmanian taxpayers have paid $37.9 million dollars to Cox Architecture for this oversized 28,000 seating capacity monstrosity!
“The Premier promised that his stadium would be no more than 40 metres high and the same height as the Grand Chancellor. That was untrue.
“If Jeremy Rockliff can’t be trusted on height, how can you trust him with the billions of taxpayer dollars this is going to cost Tasmanians in job cuts and worsening health, housing and education?
If Rockliff and his followers’ thought Tasmanians were angry, now they will be yelling at him NO STADIUM and as for the AFL and CEO Andrew Dillon, do they really want to send this state further into debt than it already is?
Tasmania deserves a Team; it does not deserve to be sent into a billion-dollar spiralling debt!
Media release – Luke Edmunds MLC, Shadow Minister for Sport, 7 July 2024
Stadium designs welcomed
Tasmanian Labor stands for safe, secure and well-paid jobs, which is why we are supporting a stadium.
We welcome today’s concept designs, and look forward to seeing more progress on this project.
While it remains to be seen if Jeremy Rockliff can deliver this on time and on budget – if he does it will be good news for Tasmania’s economy and local jobs.
Media release – Hobart Northern Suburbs Rail Action Group, 7 July 2024
STADIUM UNIQUE FOR THE WRONG REASONS
In response to the design of the Macquarie Point Stadium being revealed, the Hobart Northern Suburbs Rail Action Group (HNSRAG) said that the design was unique, not because of the timber, but because it will be the only AFL stadium in Australia that does not have rail access. HNSRAG maintains that the stadium will fail without rail.
HNSRAG President Toby Rowallan said, “We know that buses just will not be enough to move large crowds. The buses aren’t coping now with the demand of major events. They certainly won’t cope with the demand if this stadium is filled on a regular basis. Only rail can do this, which everyone else in the country knows, but the minority Liberal Government seemingly has its fingers in its ears and just isn’t listening.”
“Incredibly, last week we even had a member of the government commenting in The Mercury about the need for more inner city housing development, with the government’s own report telling us that the railway will generate over four times more housing development than the busway. The solution is rail and it is now urgently needed, both to provide the impetus for development but also to reduce congestion.”
“If the stadium is successful, and there are regular well-patronised events, then rail is the only answer. Around the country most stadiums have a rail connection (some have two) and every AFL stadium has rail (except York Park in Launceston). Of course, the railway cannot transport everyone to and from the stadium, many will come from the eastern shore and Kingborough. However, rail is the only option to avoid traffic chaos before and after big events. The northern suburbs is still the biggest suburban area in Greater Hobart and those people would then have a far superior means of getting to the stadium and back home.”
“The proposed stadium surely is unique in the sense that the minority Liberal Government continues to plan to destroy the railway and ignore what is by far the best option for moving large numbers of people,” finished Mr Rowallan.
Barry Dee
July 8, 2024 at 12:26
These are some of the unanswered questions:
* How much of the Tasmanian government’s $375 Million “cap” remains after already allocating $150 Million or more to consultants, spin doctors and training centre with still not a single brick laid? How can we ever expect to construct this building for the fictitious price of $715 Million? How safe will the internal lighting prove to be under a flammable roof? How will the temperature be kept below 40 degrees Celcius in summer?
* How can Tasmania possibly afford this mammoth expense when the state has already frozen staffing in our understaffed Hospitals?
* Will injured AFL players be ‘ramped’, or will they get special priority?
* How can Labor politicians cease putting people to sleep with their insufferable ‘jobs’ rants? It will surely be built by FIFO workers, and Labor surely knows it!
* Why does the AFL not know that the preferred location is York Park, particularly in view of recent dribble about Bellerive?
* How long will this Government last while it continues neglecting Tasmanians?
Ted Mead
July 8, 2024 at 14:12
Barry, I’ll answer your question, namely “How long will this Government last while it continues neglecting Tasmanians?”
Well, it seems indefinitely whilst they have bipartisan support for a stadium from Labor and other Independents, and while 70% of Tasmanians still vote for the major parties even though they often hoodwink their constituency – as Labor seems to have done on this stadium fiasco.
Meanwhile I’m sure * Sustainable Timber Tasmania has been lobbying like hell to get the architects to design something with heaps of wood in its structure, so their well-oiled gravy train keeps it alive a wee longer!
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* Forestry Tasmania trades as Sustainable Timber Tasmania, but is still legally called Forestry Tasmania.
Andrew Heard
July 8, 2024 at 15:15
Where are press releases from other peak bodies opposed to this Gutwein/Rockcliff/ Liberal party folly? Where’s the JLN? They were opposed to the stadium before the election!
In reading the Jacquie Lambert Network website they seem be hedging their bets now, just as Labor did with Rebecca White. Most of the Tasmanian people oppose this stadium because it is clearly at the expense of health, education and other public services.
Roderick
July 8, 2024 at 18:23
I thought I read somewhere that the toxic materials had been removed from Macquarie Point a few years ago! I wonder where those toxic materials were dumped!
The heritage listed goods sheds were moved up to the northern curve of the stadium proposal and were out of sight. Add the cost of removal of the sewage plant, or perhaps embrace the use of human waste to fertilise the turf in the manner of early Chinese market gardeners!
People will park their vehicles as close to the stadium as they can, namely at the Queen’s (King’s) Domain, the Glebe, the Botanical Gardens and the Regatta grounds etc.
Bogans do not catch public transport – they drive. “Rain will clean the roof”- is that a certainty in Australia’s second driest capital city? What about pigeon excrement which is a daily occurrence at Hobart’s waterfront? How will they name the proposed stadium – the Eric Abetz memorial stadium – a monument to destruction of our environment, or the Toxic Salmon stadium, the Robin Gray stadium. The possibilities are endless for the celebration of Tasmania’s unique political landscape and its inherent “transparency”.
Whatever happened to that chocolate fountain? I now have the name for the stadium – the Tasmanian Monty Python stadium – brought to you by Eric Olthwaite- a very Ripping Yarn.
Chris
July 9, 2024 at 09:25
What has the Gray/Abetz/Gutwhiner/Rockliff/Poker lobby ever done for us?
We have not heard from the Minister For Standing Still, one Fergie’s son, because all his statements are never said before we Tasmanians are urged to have an early erection of AFL dominated buildings, late ferries and funerals along with Nitens inspired roof work by Barnett’s biggest title of sustainable timbers.
* Where, and how, will the public get to this site?
* How many buses does it take to transport that many people?
* Will a rail line be added at Bridgewater ?
* Will we adopt Bob Cure’s idea to bituminise the Derwent for a car park, something which he so brilliantly suggested one April day, along with advising listeners to ring Ken Short at Home for further information?
It makes as much sense as paving the domain for same – with the AFL’s permission of course.