Editorial: Waterfront stadium a super idea

Opinion

We do not know what Auckland has done to get into the good books of a Government under the weather, but long may it last. First the four municipal mayors received a favourable hearing for their "supercity" reorganisation scheme. Then the Regional Council, not to be outdone, said it had found the Beehive more receptive to an Auckland electric railway. Now we learn ministers are looking at the possibilities for a sports stadium on the Auckland waterfront. It is almost like being Wellington.

A waterfront sports stadium may be no more than a Treasury exercise - a check on the economics of upgrading Eden Park for the 2011 Rugby World Cup - but it is an attractive one. If a stadium can be built in downtown Auckland for not much more than the cost of enlarging Eden Park, the prospect would be exciting.

The upgrading of Eden Park to become the 60,000-seat stadium required by the International Rugby Board, has been estimated to cost $320 million. For that sum, the ground would acquire an additional 12,500 seats, which hardly spells good value to the taxpayers who must fund it. The Government, having weighed in so prominently behind the Rugby Union's bid to host the World Cup, can hardly avoid shouldering the lion's share of the expense.

If it believes a new stadium can be erected at the waterfront for a mere $30 million more than the Eden Park upgrade, it should be done. It will be said that Auckland is already over-supplied with sports stadiums that struggle to find sufficient use and survive on life support from regional or city councils. Eden Park has been the exception, but not if a new central city arena is built for rugby. Sentiment might keep the Auckland Rugby Union at Eden Park for a while but the big matches would soon go where the patrons preferred.

And it would not be hard for a new stadium to be superior from the spectators' point of view. Modern stadiums overseas manage to bring the crowd closer to the action than they are from most of the stands at Eden Park, and access, of course, would be far superior in the central city. Whatever is done to Eden Park it will remain constrained by a residential neighbourhood. If we were designing the city today, its test rugby ground would not be where it is. Sometimes it is better to start again than throw good money after bad. When the good money would build something better for almost the same price, it becomes a no-brainer.

If the proposal is as bold as to put the new stadium on a spot as prominent as Bledisloe Terminal it needs to be a truly striking design. It could even be the "iconic" building imagined for the Western Reclamation, which will not be vacated by the tank farm in time for the World Cup. What could be more fitting on the waterfront of New Zealand's largest city than a shrine to its favourite game?

The Bledisloe facility, which is a solid reclamation, in fact, is close to the Britomart public transport terminal, the inner city's carparking buildings and the smaller Vector Arena, still unfinished. From all points of view it seems an ideal location.

The economics, of course, must take into account more than a comparison of construction costs. If the Government provides a magnificent new stadium for Auckland it will render the existing facilities, Eden Park, Mt Smart and North Harbour stadiums, even less economic and would add to the ratepayers' burden. Needless public spending is never simply a waste of money, it attracts resources that might otherwise find more economic use and thus it can weaken the economy overall. This country cannot afford too much wastage.

But sporting events like the Rugby World Cup are big television and travel attractions these days and a city with a surfeit of stadiums would be well-placed to bid for other sporting festivals. Let's go for it.