Downtown stadium doomed: Boult Jono

Jono Boult

A leading Bay cricketer has warned the proposal to build a rugby stadium on Tauranga downtown's Domain was doomed to fail.

"It is a pretty out-there idea, it is not the right location," Otumoetai Cadets premier team captain Jono Boult said.

The club has spent 37 years based on the sports ground that Mayor Stuart Crosby personally favoured for a new 15,000 to 18,000-seat stadium needed to attract more national and international fixtures.

Mr Crosby's announcement that he wants to start a public "conversation" about where to site a stadium sparked a strong reaction from Boult, who also plays alongside his brother Trent in the Northern Knights.

The Otumoetai Cadets would be the hardest hit if the mayor's idea translated into a stadium being built on The Domain's lower fields - below Tauranga Sports' No1 rugby field which was ringed by the all-weather athletics track.

Boult favoured Baypark where there was a lot of room and plenty of parking, or Blake Park at Mount Maunganui. He said the Domain location was "doomed to failure" whereas a stadium at Blake Park would join top class cricket and hockey facilities.

"We have been talking to a quite a few people and they think it is a crazy idea ... it is doomed to failure."

He said slips around The Domain raised big questions about the stability of the area to a big structure like a stadium.

Club captain Ben Christensen said the first they heard about it was when they read Saturday's Bay of Plenty Times Weekend.

"We were quite taken aback."

He said it was a tough one for the club because they had been there for such a long time, although he could see how a stadium would make the downtown a more vital destination.

"You would be hard pressed to find anywhere better to play club cricket. It has one of the best wickets in the Bay."

Christensen assumed that if The Domain was chosen, the council would shift the club to Fergusson Park. However, one of the problems with Fergusson Park was that the clubhouse was not sited with cricket in mind.

Christensen and Boult both anticipated big carparking problems with building a stadium on The Domain.

Former Cadets president Paul Wadsworth said he was excited at the prospect of a stadium, but it was a double-edged sword for the club.

The club was a strong part of the Bay's cricketing landscape and they would need to be re-housed to a facility that was no less than what they had now.

"It is such a prime location for us," he said.

Mr Crosby argued that the big advantage of The Domain was its proximity to the downtown with its accommodation, parking and bars. Big games were played in the evenings or weekends. It would tie in with the rejuvenation of the CBD over the next five to 10 years.