West Torrens Council votes to sign formal partnership with Adelaide Football Club to redevelop Thebarton Ovall

Adelaide Crows boss Tim Silvers has clinched a groundbreaking deal to spend $85m on a new club headquarters by personally offering an “olive branch” to disgruntled residents.

Adelaide Crows players Brooke Tonon and Chelsea Randall at Thebarton Oval. Picture: Simon Cross

A formal agreement will be signed between the Adelaide Football Club and West Torrens Council to design a masterplan to redevelop Thebarton Oval as its new home.

Elected members voted 7-5 on Tuesday night for the $85m project to proceed, despite several acknowledging the council was in caretaker mode for the council elections.

Before a packed public gallery, councillors unaminously voted for documents involving an exemption granted by Local Government Minister Geoff Brock to keep debating the controversial issue to be made public.

During a three-hour debate, they also publicly apologised for flawed community consultation over the acquisition of an adjacent public park, Kings Reserve.

Their approval for council to sign a memorandum of agreement followed a personal appeal by Crows chief executive Tim Silvers for the club to be given some certainty over the project.

Preliminary concept designs for the Adelaide Football Club headquarters at Thebarton Oval. Credit: City Collective

During an unexpected five-minute deputation authorised by West Torrens mayor Michael Coxon and council chief executive Terry Buss, Mr Silvers told the meeting the Crows were facing immediate costs of $1m for preliminary works.

“We owe it to our members and our fans (to sign the agreement) if we are to give them any confidence,” he said.

“This gives us confidence to move forward.”

Mr Silvers told the meeting the club would undertake to conduct its own extensive community consultation on a new masterplan for Thebarton Oval and Kings Reserve, which had a masterplan completed by the council in 2018.

Under the terms of the agreement, this would be overseen by a committee comprising of senior council staff, the mayor, club officials and residents.

“We want to be a good neighbour, we want to consult with the community to deliver something which will be a good thing for everybody,” said Mr Silvers.

Preliminary concept designs for the Adelaide Football Club headquarters at Thebarton Oval. Credit: City Collective

The commitment followed an intensive residential campaign against the potential loss of Kings Reserve, which resulted in a 524-signature petition being tabled during the meeting.

Mr Silvers confirmed the Crows wanted to transform the home ground of a Greek-based soccer club, MA Hawks, into the same size as the Melbourne Cricket Ground oval.

Residents have objected to the potential loss of 140 trees from within the reserve, which is opposite the Brickworks Market on South Rd, Torrensville.

Mr Silvers said the Crows knew public open space “is important and must be accessible to the public and it will be”.

“We want to pull down the chained gates and meshed fence around Thebarton Oval and make it accessible to the public,” he said.

The proposed area which will be leased by the Adelaide Football Club for the Thebarton Oval redevelopment. Picture: Supplied

Mr Silvers said the formal agreement between the Adelaide Football Club and the council committed it to conducting its own community engagement.

“We want to put out an olive branch to see if we can work together,” he said.

“We have heard residents want more information.

“We want to – and we will – provide that detail throughout the next phase.

“We will reach out to the community and their feedback will be taken into account.

“Our consultation will be thorough.”

Preliminary concept designs for the Adelaide Football Club headquarters at Thebarton Oval. Credit: City Collective

Hilton Ward councillor Cindy O’Reilly said the council needed to acknowledge it had mishandled the initial public consultation on the project.

Cr O’Reilly said she was concerned about how councillors were making major decisions on the project during caretaker mode – and how much had been discussed behind closed doors.

“We have made some mistakes and we need to acknowledge that,” she said.

“The fact that we only got this (the 750-page agenda for the meeting) last Friday, and I am not pointing the finger at anyone, I just feel like it has been rushed.

Residents’ interpretation of the Adelaide Football Club’s original plans for the Thebarton Oval Precinct. Picture; Supplied

Fellow Hilton Ward councillor Brandon Reynolds said he “was privileged” to be among the first councillors to meet with the Crows when they first expressed interest in Thebarton Oval in 2020.

“I have consulted widely and spoken to people who are really pissed off (over the amount of information they have been provided with),” he said.

“The fire they have sparked under the council’s backside is not going to stop.”

Mr Reynolds, who did not seek re-election, said the council should be proud of what it had achieved by listening to community unrest and seeking a formal agreement to ensure a new masterplan was finalised before a long-term lease was signed.

“There’s going to be a public consultation like you have never seen before in the history of this council,” he said.

Mr Coxon told the meeting he had personally spent “hours and hours talking to affected people within our community” about the Crows project.

“There is a cohort within our community that does not accept the proposal and there is a cohort that does,” Mr Coxon said.

“We are looking for common ground by bringing a reasonable and acceptable proposal to the communty.”

Elected members authorised Mr Coxon and Mr Buss to sign the formal memorandum of agreement and affix the council seal, making it legally binding.