Ross Pelligra acquires Titanium Security Arena, to be renamed Adelaide 36ers arena
Titanium Security Arena will be renamed and revitalised under a $30m plan by its new owner.
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Titanium Security Arena will be renamed and revitalised under a $30m plan revealed by the stadium’s new owner.
Property developer Ross Pelligra, who acquired the former Holden site in 2017, has snapped up the arena, and is planning a series of major upgrades in a bid to attract school and sporting groups to the venue.
The Adelaide 36ers will relocate the club’s administration staff to purpose-built offices in the facility, which will be renamed Adelaide 36ers Arena.
However there are no plans to return home games to the 8000-seat venue following the 36ers’ move to the 10,000 capacity Entertainment Centre in 2019.
The 36ers will continue to train at the Findon facility, which is also home to women’s basketball team the Adelaide Lightning and various other sporting groups.
Mr Pelligra owns more than 40 arenas, gymnasiums, swim centres and other sporting facilities in Victoria and is a shareholder in South Melbourne Football Club.
He said it was important to deliver certainty around the future of the 8000-seat stadium, pledging a multimillion-dollar investment in upgrades.
“We’re going to modernise the facility and it will be business as usual with existing groups who train and use the facility,” he said.
“Then we’re going to talk to other sporting groups and organisations and use the land to complement the facility – we want it to be somewhere between a school gymnasium and a major stadium, catering for everyday use.
“We could host major events for schools – basketball, netball and other major events that are not international level but are at a local level.
“It doesn’t matter how advantaged or disadvantaged you are – these facilities are important for local communities and we want the next generation of kids coming through to have a facility like this to go to.”
A consortium of investors including Scouts SA, SA Church Basketball Association and Adelaide Lightning chairman Bruce Spangler put Titanium Security Arena on the market last year.
The former owners had been investigating opportunities to rezone the land for residential use, bur Mr Pelligra ruled out any development of housing or other uses on the site.
Titanium Security Arena was built in 1992 as a new home stadium for the 36ers who shifted from the Apollo Arena at Richmond.
Adelaide 36ers chairman Grant Kelley said the venue would remain the club’s “spiritual home”, but there were no plans to relocate home games from the Entertainment Centre.
“We are delighted that our spiritual home and training base will be known, going forward, as the Adelaide 36ers Arena,” he said.
“While we will continue to play our home games at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, the arena has a special bond to the 36ers family.
“We are two years into a five-year lease at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Longer term, as we have always said, our objective is to play games in a large-scale stadium, with 12,000 to 15,000 seating capacity, in the Adelaide CBD.”
Since paying $55m for the Holden factory at Elizabeth in 2017, Mr Pelligra’s Pelligra Group has rapidly expanded its portfolio of South Australian property, which includes the former Wakefield Hospital and heritage-listed Pirie House in the CBD.
He said the state was well placed to emerge from COVID-19, and was keen to invest further.
“This won’t be the last sporting facility we buy in South Australia - we’ll look at other basketball facilities, gymnasiums, swimming pools, tennis courts, other sporting facilities - we’re looking at working with councils and other stakeholders to grow the infrastructure and assets where kids and organisations can play sport,” he said.
“The way South Australia is set up with the land, jobs starting to grow, migration and students growing - South Australia will grow by another million people fairly quickly - it’s also affordable.
“We see South Australia being a big part of the growth in our portfolio - not only in commercial and industrial but other sectors.”
Mr Pelligra said upgrades at Titanium Security Arena would include a major solar panel and battery installation, enabling the facility to operate using 100 per cent renewable energy.
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