Steven Marshall will pledge to build a city arena for concerts and sports to replace the Adelaide Entertainment Centre

A new arena for concerts, sport and major events will be built in the city to replace the Entertainment Centre, the Premier will announce today. Find out where.

The new arena would be built on the bank of the Torrens River, just west of Morphett St and the Convention Centre and north of the biomedical precinct. Picture: Adelaide Airborne Photography

An indoor arena for concerts, conventions, basketball and other court sports will be built between Adelaide’s railyards and the River Torrens, Premier Steven Marshall will announce today.

Unveiling a centrepiece of his re-election bid, Mr Marshall will pinpoint a site immediately west of the Morphett Street bridge and Adelaide Convention Centre.

The arena, expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, will replace the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

It also will significantly increase the Convention Centre’s capacity, putting it in the market for larger and more lucrative events.

The axing of the Entertainment Centre, on Port Rd, Hindmarsh, opens the prospect of a major inner-city development including the adjacent West End Brewery site, slated for closure in June.

As revealed by The Advertiser in 2018, the Adelaide arena proposal has been developed by the Adelaide Venue Management Corporation, which operates the Entertainment and Convention centres.

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The Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Port Rd. Picture: Morne de Klerk / Getty Images

It is understood the arena will not include a soccer pitch, which in earlier proposals had involved a pitch that elevated to become a roof for indoor events.

The arena’s precise cost and capacity are not known, although The Advertiser has been previously told it would cost $700m – offset by the Entertainment Centre’s sale – and seat 30,000 people.

Defunct proposals that included the retractable roof for the soccer pitch ballooned the cost to $1.3bn, which was steadfastly opposed by Treasurer Rob Lucas.

Mr Marshall in February last year confirmed an arena was a central part of his government’s agenda, using parliament’s opening to declare active planning for major inner-city and sporting entertainment infrastructure. It is understood the latest plans have undergone preliminary assessment by Infrastructure South Australia, an independent body established in 2018 by the Liberals to scrutinise projects.

The site off Morphett Street, between the railyards and the River Torrens, where the new arena would likely be built. Photo: Kelly Barnes

It is not known whether the construction site would include the area’s rowing club sheds and Helen Mayo Park – development of the latter would trigger opposition from the Adelaide Park Lands Preservation Association. The parklands advocates have opposed earlier plans for a commercial helipad and 27-storey hotel in the area.

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor and her predecessor, Martin Haese, have both previously endorsed the precinct as a site for the multipurpose arena, saying building over the city railyards had merit and could prove to be an efficient use of space.

It also is not known if the Crows have an interest in the site. An option for the railyards revealed by The Advertiser last September involved putting the arena in a major commercial precinct, including a hotel, medical research centres, outlet shops and short-stay accommodation servicing the nearby Royal Adelaide Hospital and SAHMRI. However, it is understood that the Venue Management Corporation business case, which includes a dramatic video flyover and elaborate concept drawings, is not representative of the latest proposal.

Mr Lucas’s State Budget, unveiled last November, effectively killed off the soccer option for the arena by allocating $45 million for the redevelopment of Hindmarsh Stadium, which also is operated by the Venue Management Corporation.

Earlier plans for tennis to be a linchpin of the multipurpose arena also likely have been subsumed by the Budget’s $44 million allocation for a Memorial Drive upgrade, for which demolition works started on Wednesday.

The Advertiser in September, 2018 revealed plans for a multipurpose arena were being proposed for the Riverbank precinct, detailing the option to sell off the Entertainment Centre for commercial use, potentially a shopping centre.