Plastic fantastic

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25 Jun, 2011 12:00 AM

You can look at the idea of building a plastic roof over Canberra Stadium and see it as a wacky pipe dream. A giant waste of money. Another indulgence of the pampered Raiders and Brumbies. A monument to a big-spending sports minister; a grassy Barr-boretum perhaps?
Or you can look at it the Dunedin way and see something entirely different. Something ambitious and expensive certainly, but perhaps something quite sensible for Canberra's future.

ACT Sports Minister Andrew Barr made headlines this week when he floated the idea of putting a clear, polymer roof over Canberra Stadium similar to what is being done in Dunedin, a city of 120,000, in the cold south of New Zealand.

Central to Barr's pitch was that it would help Raiders and Brumbies fans keep warm during the bleakest Canberra months, a problem that will become worse as the Brumbies' season extends into August from next year.

The public response to the idea of a potential $200million-plus spend was predictable. Judging by comments on The Canberra Times website or Letters to the Editor, people either like it but don't believe it will happen, or they view it as an epicly stupid idea that ignores the funding demands of health, education or other such ''essentials''.

''No money for disabled care and the caring mob and the boof-heads and stooges want to spend a truck load of money,'' was one comment. More flippant were suggestions Barr was simply eyeing off a fact-finding junket to New Zealand's beautiful south.

The Canberra Times editorial on Tuesday cautioned that mounting an economic case for an undercover stadium here would be difficult and that scheduling matches during the day was a smarter idea.

As is always the case in Canberra, there will be a lot of debate to be had before anything gets done or any idea gets shelved.

Malcolm Farry, head of the Carisbrook Dunedin Stadium Trust, knows this situation well.

He's been at the helm of the Forsyth Barr Stadium project since 2004 and has heard the same sorts of arguments against building a roofed stadium to keep football supporters comfortable.

In fact, he agrees with them.

''There's no way our Trust would have considered building this for rugby and rugby spectators, no way in the world. I'd be against it as well,'' Farry said.

''Anyone who tries to do something like this and base it on sport alone will have a tough job and I'd find it hard to see how they could possibly justify it.''

The reason one in 10 Dunedin residents turned out to a recent open day for the nearly completed stadium, and the reason most raved about it, is that while it will be a covered home ground for the Otago Highlanders and occasional venue for All Blacks Tests, it's also many other things.

The roof isn't just a luxurious extra, although it certainly will be luxury given Dunedin's terrible winter weather. The old Carisbrook Stadium's nickname, the ''House of Pain'', tells you what you need to know. No, the roof is the very thing that makes the stadium viable. It's what will give the city for the first time a decent concert venue, an exhibition hall, a sports science research hub, a home for lectures and seminars for the nearby Otago University, and many other uses. This variety of uses convinced the private sector to contribute more than NZ$40million ($A31million) towards the overall $A147million build. It should also allow the stadium to better pay its way. Farry estimates the proportion of income the stadium gets from rugby will drop from 40per cent to about 20per cent in about five years.

''The greatest hurdle we had to overcome was people seeing it as essentially a football stadium,'' Farry said.

''We had to show that this was not essentially a stadium for rugby, league or soccer. This is a multi-purpose facility, not a multi-sport facility.''

Canberra, more than twice the size of Dunedin, has more existing facilities than the south island city. The AIS Arena or the Convention Centre can host fairly major events, although few visitors would leave either place raving about them.

And we have Canberra Stadium, built in 1977 as an athletics track and revamped three times to what it is today. However, few who go out to watch a match appreciate how much the stadium is feeling its age. While its website might spruik it as a ''testament to quality, technology and service'', Stadiums Authority chief Neale Guthrie says it is in terminal decline.

''The operational area under the Meninga Stand, where the players are, it leaks like a sieve. When we have heavy rain we have water running down,'' Guthrie said.

''And for spectators, I can't guarantee that if you're sitting under cover that you're not going to get a whole lot of water leak down on to you.''

Money is needed urgently to patch up and upgrade the stadium to see it through the next 10 or 15 years, and the Government has budgeted $70million for that. Barr also announced yesterday he was seeking naming rights sponsorship to help subsidise the $2million-a-year maintenance cost. But Guthrie believes Canberra Stadium is at the same sort of crossroads at which many home owners find themselves. To extend and be kinda happy with the results, or knock down and rebuild a dream home.

''My wife and I look at our house and say why did we do what we did. We should have knocked it down and rebuilt instead of extending it three times. Our house is compromised because of it,'' Guthrie said. ''With the stadium, should we extend it one more time or go and build from scratch?''

If, as Guthrie and the Government believe, refurbishment work will only buy time for the aging facility, given that few stadiums stay up in their existing form longer than 50 years, the question is what should its replacement look like and where.

And to be clear, a new stadium or a vastly upgraded one will be built. Despite what critics of sports spending say, the Government firmly believes spending on sporting infrastructure is part of its brief. Guthrie cites a figure of $40million in economic benefit brought to the city each year through having the stadium. Without it, the Brumbies and Raiders could not exist.

''Sport is an industry here and if we don't spend any money the stadium will degrade and if we don't replace it we'll put that industry and jobs at risk,'' Guthrie said.

To achieve the aim of housing a football future, Barr says the cheapest option would be to replace the stadium grandstand by grandstand on the existing site. But cheapest does not necessarily mean best value.

Barr and Guthrie agree the best long-term option could be taking the stadium right into the heart of the city and trying to emulate Dunedin's truly multi-purpose facility.

Of city sites, Northbourne Oval remains popular, given it is so close to the carparking of the Canberra Centre, the bus interchange and restaurants and bars.

But the more radical idea of taking the stadium down to Lake Burley Griffin could prove the best way of achieving a project that offers benefits to the entire city and a long legacy.

One option could be opposite the existing Convention Centre on the site of the Civic pool.

Barr, however, thinks that consideration should be given to including a stadium as part of the proposed ''Australia Forum'' development.

Announced in April, the $327million project for Acton is meant to give the capital a ''world-class institution that caters for significant meetings, dialogue, cultural events, and other occasions of national importance appropriately held in the capital''.

Why not make a stadium part of it? It's hard to argue aesthetics as grounds for objection. The polymer skin that is being used in Dunedin was used on the beautiful Water Cube Olympic aquatic centre in Beijing.

One thing that would have to be considered about a new stadium, wherever it is built and in whatever form, is making it the appropriate size for Canberra. It is hard to see the city needing seating of greater than 30,000 any time in the medium term.

However, the growth of the city and the possibility that FIFA might one day decide to give Australia the World Cup hosting rights mean that it should be designed with some capacity to expand.

It would also need to be integrated into a transport plan. If light rail was to be built, it would surely need to service the stadium.

Barr also points out the way parking at the city centre Docklands Stadium in Melbourne earns money during the week.

While Barr says the Government's immediate priorities are upgrading Manuka Oval, including installing lights, and helping Canberra Stadium reach the 2020s in decent health, he says the Dunedin stadium project should be something people in Canberra talk about and think about.

''It's an example of how you can use clever design to get a greater community acceptance and it's a pretty compelling reason for us to look at something like that,'' Barr said.

Down in New Zealand, Farry says there's still people in his city who are critical of the project, but he says they are dwindling in numbers as opening day for Forsyth Barr Stadium looms.

''There's a huge buzz, everyone wants a piece of it, everyone wants to claim they supported it,'' he said.

''We knew it was going to work and it has. We believe many others in the world will follow suit, maybe even in Canberra.''

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