Tennis: Waterfront indoor stadium wipes out sliding roof plan

The much-awaited opening of an indoor waterfront stadium later this year has scuppered plans Auckland Tennis had of putting a roof over its showpiece venue.

About four years ago the association released drawings of a futuristic $7 million to $9 million stadium incorporating a sliding roof at the ASB Tennis Centre.

But with the new indoor venue and its planned capacity of up to 12,000, Auckland City no longer supports the sliding-roof proposal at the home of tennis.

However, Auckland Tennis chief executive Graham Pearce says there are still big plans to upgrade facilities at the centre, which hosts the highly successful Heineken Open and ASB Classic tournaments.

"The key for a summer stadium is not to over-capitalise," said Pearce. "You have to balance your permanent requirements with what you bring in on a temporary basis.

"We are determined to advance and enhance the support facilities."

To what extent depends largely on the success of discussions with an overseas sports/business consortium interested in making a "not insubstantial" investment. Pearce would not be drawn too deeply but said Auckland Tennis was looking at options and costs of upgrading with or without the foreign investment.

"They would bring a huge injection of capital, which would allow us to do all we want in terms of upgrading media, key corporate sponsor, player and spectator facilities.

"As an example, we want to put in plastic seating and provide some shading on the Yock Stand.

"We also have to consider what to do with the temporary stand we put up each year.

"Our preference is to build a permanent structure - that will cost us two courts, which we are prepared to live with - and incorporate some of the improvements we want."

The international tournaments remain a key component of the association's business.

With almost a complete sellout for this week's Heineken Open and with record crowds at last week's ASB Classic, around 50,000 spectators will have contributed about $900,000 to Auckland Tennis in two weeks.

"The tournaments are very expensive - around $1.7 million - to run," said Pearce.

"Sponsorship makes a much-needed and healthy contribution, obviously. But the return makes all the hard work worthwhile.

"We now want to put some of that back into our facilities.

"If we get the offshore support we are looking at, it will be a multi-million-dollar enhancement including upgraded floodlighting, which will allow longer night sessions, thus enabling us to bring more people into the stadium."

Discussions are planned with key major local sponsors in forthcoming weeks. Heineken has one more year of its contract to run and ASB has two.

ASB's naming-rights deal on the Stanley St stadium runs for another seven or eight years.

There are no plans to stage an exhibition match this summer, but Pearce is not discounting such an event in future if the right player mix is available.