"One day" could be 25 years away on the schedule for the tank farm's relocation (where?). But that is fine. We have no better use for that headland until somebody comes up with an inspiration so right that Auckland applauds as one. I might not live to see it, but the site deserves nothing less.
What, though, will happen to the waterfront east of Queen St, the area behind the red fence that the visionaries love to lament? I don't think anyone had a concrete idea until Trevor Mallard brought his drawings to Auckland last week.
Mallard is not Blake. He's a politician for one thing. A bit of the antagonism I'm hearing to the stadium comes from those looking forward to the final whistle for this Government.
It reminds me of the superannuation fund roundly rejected some years ago mainly because Winston Peters proposed it. Michael Cullen proposed one in more favourable political weather and it was accepted with scarcely a murmur.
But it would be wrong to suggest most of the horror that has greeted the stadium is political. Mallard's plan is a monster. Count up 12 floors of the nearest tower and imagine a fish bowl that size on the harbour side of Quay St. I have been doing that day by day and, despite the bulk of the thing, it's growing on me.
I like its lines, the cloudy translucent lightness of its design, and the life it would draw around it. It would be a commanding presence on the waterfront, but a balancing one, possibly, to the cranes, containers and straddle carriers of the working port.
The stadium would be a bulwark against the big freight operations, physically and visually, protecting the rest of the waterfront for passenger ships, harbour ferries, people and pleasure on the water, the wharves and the quays.
It would quickly encourage improvements to the ferry wharf and the area to the east of the Ferry Building where newly imported vehicles now bask in the sun.
The stadium would develop a commercial life quite different, I think, from the Viaduct, especially with a decent cruise ship terminal in the plan. The stadium could pull the souvenir shops out of lower Queen St and, if it revitalises the inner city sufficiently, let the street recover some of its faded glory.
A rugby stadium on water would be a tourist attraction in itself, and when you get used to the idea, what could be more fitting? Like it or not, rugby is this country's international distinction, not just a game we dominate but our most visible industry worldwide.
You could watch the All Blacks play France in a bar in Manhattan. Satellite television has made professional sport a global growth industry and rugby is ours. It is telling that the souvenir shops at the bottom of town are full of All Black insignia. In France, where soccer is bigger, they are calling us rugby's Brazil.
A world-class stadium on the Auckland waterfront would quickly become renowned wherever the game is watched. Mallard is right; it could be a source and symbol of economic improvement, evidence of our graduation into more upmarket services to leisure and entertainment.
It would certainly be a sign of prosperity. If it were not for a long period of growth, and plenty of money in the public accounts, we could not contemplate a project of this kind. The quoted price is probably only half the ultimate cost. We could spend more than $1 billion, and why not?
If we adopt Mallard's conception, and let designers do more refined work, there must be a way to lower it a bit, make some of the seating retractable so it doesn't look empty for anything other than a rugby test, and maybe even use the water beneath in some ingenious way.
If we don't seize this nothing is likely to happen for the rest of my natural span, and I dare say, yours. That, of course, is not sufficient reason to accept the Government's gift. We should embrace it with both arms not just because there has never been anything better in prospect but because a big, stylish colosseum, to all appearances floating on Auckland's wide waterfront, could be magnificent. The more I imagine it, the more exciting it is.
