Adelaide Crows chief executive Andrew Fagan and chairman Rob Chapman use members meeting to push the club’s parklands plans
The Adelaide Crows’ big plans for the Aquatic Centre in the North Adelaide parklands dominated the club’s members meeting on Monday Here’s what they had to say.
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Adelaide Crows leadership say the club can overcome fiery opposition and shift their training base and headquarters to North Adelaide, which chief executive Andrew Fagan says will be “transformational” for the club.
Fagan and chairman Rob Chapman told the Crows Members Meeting last night that they understood the fiery opposition to the club’s proposal to build a public pool, training and administration complex on the ageing Adelaide Aquatic Centre site but it could be a “win, win, win” for them, the council and ratepayers.
Fagan said the club had started discussions with key users of the centre who were “really positive” about the $65 million plans – which he described as a “national leader in terms of a community and sporting facilities”.
“I do truly believe it would be transformational,” he said.
“(It will) provide year-long activation… but at the same time invest economic activity into a place of Adelaide that needs it.”
Fagan reiterated the club would not have a liquor licence on the parklands, saying instead they would partner with a venue on O’Connell St for functions.
“If you look at what other (AFL) clubs have done (with their recent training base upgrades) I don’t know if any have licences,” he said.
Chapman said the Crows facilities at West Lakes had fallen behind the rest of the AFL.
“If we want to be at the leading edge of the competition, and we want to give our football department the competitive advantage they deserve we need to keep up,” he said.
“We were one of the first (to invest heavily in training facilities) with our $20 million redevelopment of West Lakes.
“We are now in the middle of the pack”.
The Crows have been promised $15 million by the Federal Government, and Chapman said the club had a “funding sort of funnel” to try and find the rest of the money.
“We need to give our club and our players the best facilities to succeed and win games of football,” he said.
“We think it is in the best interests of the football club to go after this opportunity.”
Opponents of the bid targeted the Members Meeting, with former Adelaide Lord Mayor Dr Jane Lomax-Smith saying she was “incredulous” that the council was contemplating allowing office development and “effectively privatising” part of the Parklands.
A group of about a dozen opponents handed out flyers to rally opposition prior to the meeting.
The Advertiser witnessed a security guard instructing the group to leave the Oval’s property.
Meanwhile, the former director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens Stephen Forbes supports investigating other ways to upgrade the aquatic centre.
Mr Forbes, who is a member of the Adelaide Park Lands Advisory Authority, has lodged a motion ahead of the authority’s Thursday meeting seeking backing of Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor’s request to approach neighbouring councils about funding the centre.
The motion would also seek writing to Premier Stephen Marshall and Prime Minister Scott Morrison about how it could help finance an upgrade.
The council voted last month for staff to write to all tiers of government to find new ways to upgrade the centre, rather than let the Crows build its training and administration complex.
Port Adelaide Enfield Council residents use the aquatic centre the most (22.6 per cent), followed by Charles Sturt Council (17.1 per cent) and Prospect (16.5 per cent), according to a council study.
City residents account for about 8 per cent of the more than 715,000 annual visitors.
A new petition started by Cat Flint, called Say NO! to AFL Crows’ Office Block on Adelaide’s Park Lands appeared on change.org on the weekend, attracting more than 500 signatures in two days.