Plans Unveiled for $1 billion Perth Stadium

In 2007 John Kobelke, the Western Australia State Minister for Sport at the time made public calls for federal funding support to kick start the construction of a new football stadium in Perth, now four years later, the funding is in place and after the announcement of the development, the plans are going ahead.

The new stadium in the Burwood Peninsula, Perth will be constructed on the existing site of the previous Paterson Stadium which had a capacity of 43,500 seats. The surrounding areas of the stadium are government owned and are unrestricted by developments, few restrictions mean there’s the opportunity for the projects design team to make this new stadium a structure for Perth to be deeply proud off.

The $1 billion in funding allocated to the project will enable the construction of a facility hosting 60,000 seats and with the capacity in the future to increase up to 70,000 seats. As a result the stadium will have the third largest seating capacity within Australia and will also be home to the second largest of the Australian Football League home stadiums.

The new facility will be designed to be capable of hosting events in football, cricket, international rugby games and music events.

It’s architecture will be predominantly modelled on the Ethiad Stadium in Melbourne, however differing features will make it a stand-out. Included in the design will be retractable seating, enabling the configuration of the stadium shape to be changed when required. A specialist lighting system will be integrated that will illuminate the stadium in the colours of its home team.

The design will not include an underground car parking facility, this is owing to the poor quality level of the soil on the site. Instead car parking be provided through a bridge built specifically to overcome this problem which will lead to parking facilities. Due to the poor soil quality the site will also have 30 metre pylons installed into the ground at a cost of $30 million which will support the stadium.

The $1 billion funding is broken down to $700 million being allocated for the development of the stadium and the final $300 million will be assigned to the construction of transportation infrastructure, such as a four platform train station making transport links easier for visitors. Over the next two years $13 million has been assigned for the planning process in the 2011-2012 budget.

Whilst this is positive news for Perth, the implementation of the new plans have drawn criticism for being too slow in comparison to the developments of other high profile stadiums. The next three years will involve the design process and consultation and construction is estimated to begin in 2014, with completion in 2018. The construction of Melbourne’s Dockland’s Stadium and the Sydney Olympic Stadium both took two years in total.

Published on 05 July 2011