News We’re going to Dingleyland! Construction to begin.

[Strapping Young Lad]

 

[walhawk]

With respect to your post, the whole concept of securing a long term facility is be able to adapt to all possible future scenarios. Whilst I agree it's not something that should be in focus in the short to medium term, it could very well be something to look at in 30 years.

Disagree. It is not relevant and there is no chance that it was one of the club's criteria.

 

[Great 2008]

Did I hear accommodation in the wind when Newbold was talking about the project?

Would it be a good idea to build a few contemporary units for our new recruits/families to come and stay at to assist with settling in?

 

[Hawkk]

Slightly off the beaten track but I can definitely see us splitting the land and becoming the landlords for a future St Kilda facility as well

With Melbourne looking for a second facility I see no reason why we couldn't become their landlord at Waverley Park either

 

[Gold Member]

Please stop.
There is zero chance of us building a stadium and if we did, zero chance of an AFL game ever being played there.
So many reasons why, but primarily current stadia contracts, and the fact that even a 20K seater is totally financially impossible. It would be the death of our club if it was attempted.
Please stop perpetuating this message. Stupid, gullible people might believe that it has 1% chance of ever happening.

100% agree.

Not within 2 stops of the city loop = fail
No trains at all = fail
At the mercy of AFL fixturing = fail
At the mercy of losing AFL approved venue status = fail
Putting all financial eggs into 1 basket = fail

 

[cryptor]

Slightly off the beaten track but I can definitely see us splitting the land and becoming the landlords for a future St Kilda facility as well

With Melbourne looking for a second facility I see no reason why we couldn't become their landlord at Waverley Park either

I wouldn't want to be a landlord to St Kilda FC. I've heard about their wild parties and questionable acts involving school girls and dwarves.

 

[arupist]

I wouldn't want to be a landlord to St Kilda FC. I've heard about their wild parties and questionable acts involving school girls and dwarves.

I dunno, depends on whether you get an invitation, I suppose.

 

[walhawk]

Slightly off the beaten track but I can definitely see us splitting the land and becoming the landlords for a future St Kilda facility as well

With Melbourne looking for a second facility I see no reason why we couldn't become their landlord at Waverley Park either

Melbourne can sub-let Waverley Park from us.
Hopefully we can sell off half the Dingley land for housing once the environmental issues have cleared. If this is possible then we might look at buying the other half of the site and leasing to the nursery until it can be developed.

 

[Flukey!]

How is it we only own 85% of Waverley?
Which 15% don't we own?

 

[Brishawk]

Please stop.
There is zero chance of us building a stadium and if we did, zero chance of an AFL game ever being played there.
So many reasons why, but primarily current stadia contracts, and the fact that even a 20K seater is totally financially impossible. It would be the death of our club if it was attempted.
Please stop perpetuating this message. Stupid, gullible people might believe that it has 1% chance of ever happening.

Not impossible but unlikely. We would need a co-tenant and St Kilda is the only one that would consider shifting some games there. Metrocon was built for 150 million and plays 11 games there. IF that is the benchmark of a profitable stadium then we could do it with a co-tenant. I'm sure we can assess this and would only proceed with a contract either with the AFL and/or st kilda in place.

 

[Brishawk]

How is it we only own 85% of Waverley?
Which 15% don't we own?

Can't tell you how it is divded however if we can use the 15% equity more efficiently elsewhere i.e. to fund Caroline springs, dingles land purchase etc. then there isn't too much downside in having that stake owned by someone else.

 

[walhawk]

Not impossible but unlikely. We would need a co-tenant and St Kilda is the only one that would consider shifting some games there. Metrocon was built for 150 million and plays 11 games there. IF that is the benchmark of a profitable stadium then we could do it with a co-tenant. I'm sure we can assess this and would only proceed with a contract either with the AFL and/or st kilda in place.

Actually it is impossible to make it work.
Get out the calculator and work it out. Principle + interest on a commercial loan of $200M would be $20M annually. Do you suggest playing the four Tassie games there? How much money would even eight games generate (if St Kilda or anyone else were stupid enough to join us as we fold)? Certainly not $20M more than we currently make from Tassie. Our club would fold before construction was complete.

Metricon is only profitable for GC because they did not pay to build it. They are not paying back the $150M + interest.
Plus it is used for other events.
Commonwealth Games or Foo Fighters @ Dingley anyone?

 

[walhawk]

How is it we only own 85% of Waverley?
Which 15% don't we own?

I assume the 15% that was retained my Metricon.

 

[cryptor]

Actually it is impossible to make it work.
Get out the calculator and work it out. Principle + interest on a commercial loan of $200M would be $20M annually. Do you suggest playing the four Tassie games there? How much money would even eight games generate (if St Kilda or anyone else were stupid enough to join us as we fold)? Certainly not $20M more than we currently make from Tassie. Our club would fold before construction was complete.

Metricon is only profitable for GC because they did not pay to build it. They are not paying back the $150M + interest.
Plus it is used for other events.
Commonwealth Games or Foo Fighters @ Dingley anyone?

You're talking as if we'd be doing it tomorrow. The discussion (at least the one I've been following) is the possibility of it 30-50 or more years from now. There's plenty of stuff clubs do these days that if you considered doing it 30-50 years ago people would have the same reaction you're having now.

The amount of money a club like ours might generate relative to the cost of a boutique stadium development might narrow significantly over this time or it might blow out further. With technology progressing at such a great rate there's no knowing what new methods of construction might be available in 10-20-30 years time that significantly cuts the costs of building something like that.

Fair enough if you don't think it's likely to ever happen but to categorically reject it and claim it impossible? There's realists and then there's pessimists.

 

[Gold Member]

You're talking as if we'd be doing it tomorrow. The discussion (at least the one I've been following) is the possibility of it 30-50 or more years from now. There's plenty of stuff clubs do these days that if you considered doing it 30-50 years ago people would have the same reaction you're having now.

The amount of money a club like ours might generate relative to the cost of a boutique stadium development might narrow significantly over this time or it might blow out further. With technology progressing at such a great rate there's no knowing what new methods of construction might be available in 10-20-30 years time that significantly cuts the costs of building something like that.

Fair enough if you don't think it's likely to ever happen but to categorically reject it and claim it impossible? There's realists and then there's pessimists.

30-50 years??
Good thinking, a landlocked and inaccessible 20k stadium to service a club of 100 to 120k members...

Never put a cap on potential future growth.
Want proof? Look at the membership numbers of the two "Big 4" clubs who signed on as tenants at Docklands vs membership numbers of MCG tenants....

 

[RustyHawk]

I assume the 15% that was retained my Metricon.

Firstly Mirvac not Metricon

Secondly. The Fish n Chip shop and the IGA mart (certainly not super) where sold recently at auction by Mirvac to an Asian investor and a Glen Waverley real estate owner respectively.

 

[Grumblez]

I'm in 2 minds with this,
We could build a 20-40k seat stadium and try co-tenant with likes of st kilda and melbourne , and there's other avenues aswell, soccer for instance they always want our mcg or shitihad could always strike a deal with them( and they pay big bucks) same as rugby , female afl comp is starting to take off, that lingerie footy league so there's plenty of avenues to generate money and if designed correctly u could have it built so u can add to the capacity seating should the afl grow big enough that 3 stadiums are required in melbourne or that attendance levels rise and the attendance levels out grow what shitihad can hold , then it is maybe worth a think about

 

[Brishawk]

Actually it is impossible to make it work.
Get out the calculator and work it out. Principle + interest on a commercial loan of $200M would be $20M annually. Do you suggest playing the four Tassie games there? How much money would even eight games generate (if St Kilda or anyone else were stupid enough to join us as we fold)? Certainly not $20M more than we currently make from Tassie. Our club would fold before construction was complete.

Metricon is only profitable for GC because they did not pay to build it. They are not paying back the $150M + interest.
Plus it is used for other events.
Commonwealth Games or Foo Fighters @ Dingley anyone?

Lanuceston makes money out of 5 AFL games a year plus a few local league games and its a 20k seat stadium.

There are lots of ways to realise greater value from a stadium than the gate receipts of a few games of professional football. Signage and catering revenue would belong to the club for a start. Stadium naming rights. Alternative use for stadium i.e. local clubs, VFL team, schools, public use. Besides which they already need to develop a playing surface and some sort of structure around the ground to enable closed training sessions.

It doesn't take a genius to look at google maps and realise the best land, closest to the city or desirable places to work and play is in the green corridor that exists between Oakliegh, Dandenong and Chelsea. Where are all the young families going to move to in the next 20 years? Way out east or in that corridor? A bit of PT infrastructure (roads already planned or there to some degree) and that corridor will fill with homes rapidly. We have seen the same thing happen in Brisbane. There was a corridor of 'worthless land' between Brisbane and Ipswich which is now called Springfield Lakes and is the fastest growing place in Australia and received awards for its Master Plan. Before state government funding was cut the Lions were going to base their training base there and the development was to include a small stadium capable of hosting games (primarily preseason games etc.). It will only take a bit of vision and the removal of a few hurdles through government support to see the same thing happen in that corridor. Dingley is at the northern end of that corridor and will be in a prime position to offer services that young families will want and that is one way of securing the additional funding required to turn that investment into a viable option.

 

[cryptor]

30-50 years??
Good thinking, a landlocked and inaccessible 20k stadium to service a club of 100 to 120k members...

Never put a cap on potential future growth.
Want proof? Look at the membership numbers of the two "Big 4" clubs who signed on as tenants at Docklands vs membership numbers of MCG tenants....

Obviously when the time came, again 30-50 years down the track, the feasibility and specifications of any potential stadium development would be worked out then. With considerations revolving around points like membership size and accessibility. There's apparently already plans in place for road access from the highways and who knows what other public transport developments will occur over that time.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread even Newbold in the QA discussion didn't rule the potential of this idea out if it ever became financially feasible for the club. And again, fair enough if people think it won't happen but don't talk down to others as if it's an impossibility when no one can really know the state of the game or even the world in 30-50 years time.

Perhaps newly built stadiums of the future will only fit 20k in the future with players playing in indoor arenas with only the wealthy able to afford tickets to attend live with most spectators now forced to watch from home via virtual reality devices that simulate the experience of being there. Maybe the MCG seating will be replaced with wall to wall corporate boxes. Probably (and hopefully) not but then a stadium with an opening and closing roof was once considered impossible, or a stadium with multiple 75m tall light towers.

If we only ever took the "sensible on paper" options we'd currently be the Melbourne Hawks Football Club.

 

[Bumpswithagrin]

Who knows what the football landscape will be like in the future. I very much doubt the club would be categorically ruling out the possibility of a boutique stadium at some point although I can't see it happening in the immediate future.

 

[blue harvest]

Lanuceston makes money out of 5 AFL games a year plus a few local league games and its a 20k seat stadium.

What do you mean by Launceston makes money? Do you mean the actual stadium or the Hawks?
How do you know how much money Aurora stadium makes (and it only seats about 14K)?
If you count the payments made to the Hawks to play there, along with maintenance and all of the funds required to build, it would be making big losses.
That's the point people are making, if you have to stump up all of the cash to pay for a whole stadium built from scratch then it is not viable.

 

[Long Live HFC]

How do you know how much money Aurora stadium makes (and it only seats about 14K)?

not that it matters but aurora seats 20.

 

[MrPremiership]

i hope in 30-50 years time you won't have any 20k attendances. Think of the natural growth, its just not going to be the norm anymore. Low drawing games would be 30k+

 

[blue harvest]

not that it matters but aurora seats 20.

Their own website has capacity approx 20K, but that includes jamming in several thousand people standing.
Only seating capacity I could find was 14K once the Northern Terrace was finished in 2011. Since then I think they have upgraded the Carlton Draught Stand which may have added a couple of thousand.

 

[Hawkk]

i hope in 30-50 years time you won't have any 20k attendances. Think of the natural growth, its just not going to be the norm anymore. Low drawing games would be 30k+

To make a point...

In 1996-1999 our lowest gates (Melb home games) were:

1996 - 14286 (WCE), 14914 (FOOTS), 16217 (FITZ)
1997 - 15939 (FREM), 20517 (WCE), 23453 (ADEL)
1998 - 18698 (PA), 22366 (BL), 23845 (NM)
1999 - 13941 (FREM), 16665 (MELB), 21114 (KANGA)

Compared to 2011 - 2014

2011 - 27532 (PA), 31925 (FREM), 42198 (WB)
2012 - 23098 (GC), 26518 (GWS), 33524 (ADEL)
2013 - 28112 (GC), 32523 (WCE), 42103 (NM)
2014 - 17906 (GWS), 32925 (STK), 43583 (FREM)

With the odd exception we've probably gained 10,000 in core support over a 20 year period (20,000 to 30,000), admittedly part of that growth is offset by playing games at the MCG instead of Waverley Park but there is no telling how big our crowds will be in 20 years (given our 2008 - current era)

 

[Long Live HFC]

Their own website has capacity approx 20K, but that includes jamming in several thousand people standing.

shrugs, i don't really care how they fit the people in. our biggest crowd was against sydney in 2012 iirc, and it was over 19. i didnt count how many were standing