Who's going to pay for an AFL standard stadium in Queanbeyan?
I doubt the NSW government would be interested.
Sorry, meant that as a joke.
The stadium in Civic isn't happening, there is neither the space nor political will for it anymore, but if it did it would cost significantly more that $350mil these days anyway. You could pretty much double that cost at the very least.
I can never even tell any more. I knew Barr was cold on Civic, but I just saw the latest $500m-700m price tag associated with levelling Parkes Way.
Looks like the latest plan is for a Bruce redevelopment?
Redeveloping Manuka might do, however you'd need to find a way to squeeze in roughly 10k more seats on top of that 20k, and find a way to get more coverage over all the seating, otherwise the stadium will be too small to support larger crowds and the conditions in Canberra will turn away a significant percentage of potential supporters just like Bruce does.
Besides, the nimbys in Manuka have made it very clear that they'll fight any significant upgrades to Manuka Oval, and nimbys rule this city. So even if you could make the necessary upgrades to Manuka (which I doubt BTW) you'd have an uphill battle to get them over the line.
The was plenty of room around the 20k in that masterplan, so I think getting to ~25k could be done pretty comfortably.
The nimbys are trickier than the space I think. I completely get their opposition in 2016 to GWS' Manuka Green proposal back in the day. It was essentially just a land grab by Grocon.
I think the biggest opposition by Manuka nimbys would be large crowds and the parking associated with it. Hopefully the light rail in the vicinity will help alleviate it a bit, though it would've been better if the ACT government had stuck to their preferred route along National Circuit.
Phillip Oval on the other hand is in a better spot, has less residents around it, better public transport links, parking, restaurants and bars within walking distance, everything you need in a good location for a stadium. That's the place to do it if it's possible to fit a stadium big enough on the plot.
I do like Phillip Oval as an option, but you're essentially starting from scratch, so it'd be a bigger cost (and a harder sell to the public).
Development is happening pretty fast in Phillip though, so hopefully they save enough room around the oval for any potential development.