Paul Starick analysis: New battle ahead over Brompton Gasworks, site of Adelaide Football Club’s failed HQ plans

The Adelaide Crows are set to be the talk of the town within weeks as controversy reignites over the site of their failed plan for a new base. Here’s Paul Starick’s analysis.

Within a few weeks, the Adelaide Football Club is set to be the talk of the town.

Unfortunately for Crows fans, including this writer, it won’t be because the team is charging through to the AFL finals series.

Rather, the imbroglio of the club’s eight-to-10-year hunt for a home away from West Lakes will reignite.

The trigger point will be the release of an independent review into the land deal for the Brompton Gasworks, where the Crows had hoped to build new headquarters.

The review has been examining the former Liberal government’s decision in January to name MAB Corporation as the preferred proponent for the 5.81ha inner-west site, ahead of the Adelaide Football Club.

The newly installed Labor government fulfilled an election promise by, in early May, commissioning engineering firm AECOM to conduct the review and releasing the criteria that decided MAB’s selection.

At the time, Housing and Urban Development Minister Nick Champion said he anticipated the review would take six to eight weeks.

Artist impression of the proposed MAB Corporation development at the former Brompton Gasworks.

It is understood the review will be handed to the government in late July, ahead of a subsequent public release. By that stage, the Crows will have only three games remaining in the 2022 season – the final one a Showdown against Port Adelaide.

Self-evidently, the findings of the review are not yet known. Any decision to tear up MAB’s deal, however far advanced, will raise sovereign risk issues. The Labor government will have to calculate whether the review provides sufficient ammunition and impetus to attempt this.

Some influential figures were dismayed by the-then Liberal treasurer Rob Lucas’s announcement that Melbourne-based MAB had been selected ahead of the Crows in the process run by state government land agency Renewal SA.

Not least among them was future Premier Peter Malinauskas, a passionate Port supporter whose Croydon electorate includes the Brompton site.

Just weeks before his March 19 state election success, Mr Malinauskas pointedly highlighted that the Crows’ proposal involved 57 per cent open space versus MAB’s 25 per cent.

Artist impression of the proposed development at the former gasworks site at Brompton. Picture: MAB Corporation

The Labor leader also stressed that the Crows’ plan would have created $3.1bn in economic activity over 20 years.

“They’ve chosen more high-density housing in what’s already a densely housed community and denied a project that was ostensibly commercially viable and provided more green space,” Mr Malinauskas told The Advertiser in late January.

“Between Port Rd and Torrens Rd in the Bowden and Brompton community there’s no oval for people to kick a footy or play cricket.”

Inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes, a respected and erudite commentator, declared: “Renewal SA should hang their heads in shame. There’s a real chance that developments like that could turn into ghettos.” Their objections, based on the Crows proposal’s superior community and open space aspects, take on even greater significance now.

Not only is Mr Malinauskas running the state, but sporting clubs are crying out for ovals. As revealed by The Advertiser on July 1, an SANFL long-term facilities plan predicts more than 20 new football ovals will be needed across Adelaide within a decade to cater for a growing number of community footballers.

This is largely driven by an “unprecedented” growth in female participation.

Importantly, an oval was planned for the Brompton Gasworks in almost exactly the same spot that the Crows proposed to create one.

A 2011 masterplan document for the Bowden Urban Village, clearly shows an oval on the gasworks site.

A report to parliament’s Public Works Committee in the same year, by the Land Management Corporation (Renewal SA’s predecessor), details expected outcomes from the Bowden Urban Village. These are littered with references to “public spaces and landscaping” and a “high-quality and functional public realm”.

Providing open space and community connections were key components of the Crows’ failed plan. It is likely the AFL club now considers reviving Brompton a remote chance and, instead, is focusing on the Thebarton Oval precinct for planned new headquarters.

The LMC also told the Public Works Committee in 2011 that the state had experience in remediating contaminated industrial sites, like the gasworks. MAB, like the Crows, vowed to fund and oversee the clean-up themselves. It is likely the current Labor government would prefer this be conducted by an experienced state body rather than the private sector.

This is an important, if controversial, parcel of inner-western Adelaide land. It is vital that whatever development goes ahead is in the interests of the entire state.