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from todays West Australian
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.as...ontentID=37892
Plans for a rectangular arena dead
21st August 2007, 6:00 WST
Plans for a modern rectangular stadium in Perth are officially dead, with the $25 million the State Government promised in 2004 for the project diverted to the new 60,000-seat multi-purpose arena.
Department of Sport and Recreation chief Ron Alexander revealed yesterday the money former Sports Minister Bob Kucera produced to upgrade Members Equity Stadium during the bidding process to lure the Western Force to Perth would now help foot the $800 million bill for the new facility, increasingly likely to be built at Kitchener Park in Subiaco.
In return, rugby and soccer have gained significant concessions in the design of the stadium, with 22,000 retractable seats along the touch lines and behind the posts in the rectangular configuration.
“The seating will be better for rugby fans than at Telstra Stadium in Sydney,” Mr Alexander said. “And overall it will be way better than at Subiaco Oval because the permanent stands will be more steeply raked.”
He said plans for a rectangular stadium were dumped when the Government task force did the sums and found it would probably operate near capacity fewer than 10 times a year and lose about $5 million a year.
“That’s based on a 35,000-seat stadium with the same number of corporate suites as Subiaco Oval,” he said.
“We’ve worked hard to put rugby in the best possible position.
“They won’t have their own venue but they won’t be beholden to football if the new stadium is independently controlled, as planned.”
DAVE HUGHES