I haven't heard anything lately, but it would be interesting if Perth or East Perth made it their home ground, with Shield cricket in the summer (they could also make a play for the State 50-over competition).
WAFL games attract 2000 people every week.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Subi, WACA, Perth Oval, Burswood all fighting over the same Neil Diamond concerts once a year.
Bit of fear mongering there. Apartments are an easy target because it panders to NIMBY interests that would prefer nothing be built. The underlying reality is this - Perth has grown to over 2 million people. 15 years ago when Brisbane had a population around 1.8 million it sustained 60+ storey apartment projects without fuss. Even now with only 300k more people than Perth's 2 million it has a series of 80-90 storey apartment towers either recently completed or under construction. The scale of Perth's high rise residential development is positively tame considering its size and growth trajectory. In fact it's more in line with high rise residential development occurring in the far smaller Adelaide which only adds 100k in population per decade. Also whatever insight you have in to the market now, get your crystal ball out because if the WACA intended to sell up and develop apartment towers then those buildings aren't hitting the market in the current cycle, but at least 5 years down the track after accounting for WACA board approval/member vote, design, DA, sales, tender, demolition, construction.
Not fearmongering; I actually prefer building up than out. But the word coming out of the industry is that there are too many apartments coming online at the same time, at a time when the market has stalled somewhat. There will be a market for them when the market recovers, but now is not the time, even accounting for the time lag (apartments like Riverside are coming online in about three to five years, which puts them in the same timeframe, the Belmont Park development would probably start at the same time as any WACA development etc).
The economic justiification always comes down to the basic principle of "best use" for the land. The WACA property is bound by parks, next to the CBD, and almost waterfront on 2-3 sides. Very valuable. Even in the instance where the WACA was selling out 20,000 each week it still wouldn't be yielding an income that justifies its use for the value of its land - stadiums anywhere rarely do this because they are rarely taking cashflow for more than 50 days in a year, compared to something like a supermarket operating year round. Each year it the WACA remains is at the opportunity cost of not earning an appropriate yield for such a valuable property.
In the future could this be different as population grows? Could we have another afl team or a rugby league team ? I still think wafl should be based there. Pull games out eael to grow in the cricket pitch? Or is this pie in the sky. Will be deva stating to state cricket to lose the waca. Would be a lOSS for world cricket as well.
Different for what? Stadium requirements? I don't think so. An NRL team would be playing at Perth Oval with Perth Glory and the Western Force, and it'd be pretty tidy financially for the ground's owner (still the council I assume). A new AFL team would be at Burswood, the AFL wouldn't have it any other way.
I agree with this. Demolishing things for the here and now is easy, but it's worth keeping facilities, particularly close to the city, because once it's gone, it's gone. And it becomes more expensive in future to develop in the inner city area.
On the one hand, Subi is the easiest to lose (at least the WACA is purpose-built for cricket and in the city). But Subi has the heritage value, over 100 years old. The gates, at least, are heritage listed.
It is crown land owned by the state, managed by subi council and leased to WAFC. So pretty much when WAFC decide to move the state government can do whatever it wants to it.
Yes but I have a feeling they don't want to make it concrete because that means that the WAFC will have no choice and the state government will give them a bad deal. So if they keep it open there is more of a chance to get a better deal. If you look at it, its the best deal for the WAFC to get a sharing of facilities meaning they don't have to take the cost of running their own facilities.
They want a redevelopment, with no way to make a large amount of capital with previous plans failing, think about it. Trust me the WACA and WAFC are in a similar boat however in recent time the WACA seems to be a bit better off. But nowhere near being comfortable.
It has to. The only other option is that the AFL takes over and trust me if you think we are getting a raw deal now, you've seen nothing. Also all it has to do is streamline and become more efficient. Remember running a stadium of Subiaco's size takes a large team so when thats gone the WAFC will be a much smaller entity and finally be focused on state football. Also once WCE move out of Subi there is really no reason for them to focus on AFL teams at all except when receiving money.
