New Auckland Unlimited boss Nick Hill says Eden Park will be around for the next 10 years and he supports rock concerts at the stadium. Photo / File
OPINION
I had a great sense of deja vu reading new Auckland Unlimited CEO Nick Hill's "fresh" look at the Auckland stadium strategy.
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I say this because, upon my appointment as chairman of Regional Facilities Auckland in November 2018, I put forward the following strategy to Auckland Council, which is just as relevant two years later.
Focus all rectangular field sports at Eden Park. Discussions began with a number of codes using other council-owned facilities to see if the contracts they held to use those facilities could be renegotiated and their games transferred to Eden Park.
I supported concerts being held at Eden Park as of right (up to eight a year), because every venue in the city has to be multi-purpose for Auckland to be well served.
I proposed developing a low-cost concert venue at Western Springs which could also hold cricket matches. The concert season (in the absence of a covered venue) clashes with the cricket season, with about 63 playing days of cricket across the summer.
The problem is that if Eden Park was being used for a concert, the Outer Oval (the cricket oval) would need to be used as part of the access for the stadium, and therefore an alternative venue for cricket would need to be sourced.
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While a concert might only be held for a single evening, the set-up, pack-down and rehearsals would take several days either side, making Eden Park unavailable for cricket for significant periods.
A redeveloped Western Springs could house those matches (and provide a home for test cricket, which has been absent from Auckland for some time) while also being used for large concerts when, for sporting reasons, Eden Park was not available.
This would have provided the necessary flexibility for the city, enabling it to attract more concerts overall rather than just change their location.
Attracting more concerts is necessary because Eden Park is owned by a trust established solely for the benefit of Auckland Cricket and Auckland Rugby.
The transfer of lucrative concerts to Eden Park would mean that critical funding for the arts (e.g. Auckland Art Gallery), culture (e.g. Auckland Primary Principals Concert) and community facilities (e.g. Auckland Zoo) would be lost to the community, because these are not specified beneficiaries of the trust, which receives revenue from events at Eden Park.
Conversely, profit from Mt Smart concerts goes into revenue for the RFA (now part of Auckland Unlimited), which is then used to help fund arts and culture activities and institutions.
Given the critical position Auckland Council finds itself in financially, this is now a more significant issue than it was even two years ago.
Development of Western Springs would have then permitted the closure of Mt Smart and potentially facilitated repurposing the site to other commercial and business purposes. This would have released capital to support the development of arts and culture and community projects.
While there were complexities associated with this, Mt Smart's long-term lease (rather than freehold) and use of some of the secondary ovals for community sport, we were confident it could be dealt with creatively, with benefits for all parties.
This would also have avoided the necessary renovation of Mt Smart at a cost of more than $250 million by the end of the decade, expenditure the city could not and cannot afford.
It was proposed to move speedway to Colindale. This proposal was ultimately voted down by councillors. A move of speedway to either Colindale or Waikaraka Park would have provided the sport with a permanent home.
Western Springs has significant restrictions on its use (14 nights of speedway a year, including practice sessions), which makes the venue uneconomic for both the council and speedway itself. There was also the issue of lack of tenure.
The answers remain the same because the problems have not changed
Combined with the event restrictions and the competing needs of Ponsonby Rugby Club, investment for a first-class purpose-built venue could not be justified at Western Springs.
Speedway deserved better than that, and a purpose-built venue shared with other motor sports would have been much better for the long-term viability of the sport.
Sport is more than just rugby, and RFA worked to repurpose North Harbour Stadium over the past two years to provide a baseball field as well as hosting rugby, and its capability to accommodate both Australian Rules and cricket has been enhanced.
Underlying everything was the problem that all of Auckland's venues - including Eden Park - are old, tired and look dated in comparison to competing stadia in Dunedin, Wellington and (soon) Christchurch.
The lack of a covered venue means that concerts in winter will go elsewhere in New Zealand or bypass us altogether in favour of the increasingly attractive venues being built across the Tasman.
My suggestion was that the city look seriously to developing, in conjunction with private investors, a large, covered, concert venue downtown.
This recognised that sport was increasingly not a significant driver of activity or revenue – Eden Park also appears to recognise this in pushing for concerts to be held at the venue.
Once the Christchurch stadium is available, it is likely that Auckland will see possibly two All Blacks tests a year. No stadium can remain viable on such low usage. Even adding in some well-attended cricket, league and domestic rugby, the economics are questionable.
Concerts by comparison are lucrative and drive more economic activity across the city. A purpose-built venue could house concerts, e-sports and conventions year round.
The need for low-cost multi-purpose stadia remains, and Auckland Council has a role to play in providing these venues. Eden Park, if transferred to public ownership, could potentially fulfil some of these obligations, but in its current guise and ownership it also is not fit for purpose.
The rumoured sale of the All Blacks to private capital potentially exacerbates this issue as then both the sport and the major sporting venue in the country would not be contributing back to grassroots sport and community projects.
One of the main reasons I decided not to put myself forward for consideration for the combined Ateed/Regional Facilities Auckland body, Auckland Unlimited, was that there was no long-term thinking at Auckland Council level.
The comments by Nick Hill merely go back over the same tired issues. The answers remain the same because the problems have not changed.
Regional Facilities Auckland had just completed a major strategy for the arts, culture, sport and our heritage and science institutions as the COO review got under way.
I fear that this thinking – which looked to partner private capital, philanthropy and the council to develop city-wide world-class programmes and facilities to cement Auckland's place as New Zealand's global city – will now be lost as a consequence of further short-term thinking and political expediency.
Auckland deserves better than this.
• Entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Barnes is a former chairman of Regional Facilities Auckland, the innovator behind the 4 Day Week and the founder of Perpetual Guardian, among other entities.
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