Adelaide Crows examine Thebarton Oval, Showground and parklands for headquarters
The Crows’ big move to the city is definitely on the cards – but it won’t be to the Aquatic Centre. Here’s where they’re seriously considering.
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The Crows are eyeing off several spots around Adelaide for a new headquarters, while ex-ICAC head Bruce Lander is heading back to the law office – but not the courtroom. Here’s this week’s Off The Record.
HOME WANTED
The Adelaide Crows are eyeing off Thebarton Oval, the Adelaide City Council nursery and parklands opposite the Ice Arena as potential new headquarters after finally abandoning North Adelaide’s aquatic centre.
Other options being scouted out by club officials include the Adelaide Showground, in the inner southern suburb of Wayville.
Thebarton Oval looks the most promising option, using $15 million in federal funding originally pledged in March last year.
A Thebarton redevelopment, although potentially frustrated by the multi-billion-dollar South Rd upgrade, opens the prospect of the SANFL grand finalists’ colours being emblazoned on the adjacent Brickworks chimney – replacing the soon-to-be defunct West End Brewery tradition.
In addition to the $15 million promised last year to help fund a Crows move from West Lakes, there is $6 million in federal funding promised two years ago for a proposed SANFL Thebarton Oval redevelopment to create an elite-level sports facility for SANFL male and female talent programs.
West Torrens Council’s 2020/21 Budget also includes $1.25 million for upgrading Thebarton Oval and the adjacent Kings Reserve, just to the Oval’s north.
A former SA Water site opposite Thebarton’s Ice Arena, bordered by James Congdon Drive, Port Rd and the railway line, is also being checked out by the Crows.
There is an oval there but it is probably too small for the Crows’ needs, which include an oval of similar size to Adelaide Oval with sufficient space to widen the wings to the same dimensions as the MCG.
The site was transformed from an SA Water depot to parklands under the previous Labor government and is now under the care and control of Adelaide City Council.
That same body previously resisted the Crows’ highly coveted site, the 1.6ha Adelaide City Council nursery site, at War Memorial Drv’s eastern end – revealed almost two years ago by The Advertiser as a preferred location.
It is understood the council does not want to move the facility, which houses the plant nursery and council’s green waste recycling and mulch centre. Some concerns about development on parklands also have been aired.
The Showground also has some complications, because the Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society has resisted removing the trotting track surrounding the main arena. Should the Crows return to finals contenders, training in September would be frustrated by the annual Royal Adelaide Show.
A further hurdle to the Crows’ already fraught move is the existing headquarters at West Lakes, which look increasingly forlorn as a major development replaces the former AAMI Stadium precinct.
A council library and community centre had been slated for the club’s $21 million training and entertainment centre, opened in 2009, once the Crows left West Lakes.
But Charles Sturt Council in September released plans for a $20 million community hub, including a library, cafe and medical centre, on the former Football Park site. Construction is expected to take a year with work starting soon.
This means the Crows now must find a use for the facilities, which were considered state of the art when they first opened.
Despite new Crows chairman John Olsen in October saying the controversial Adelaide Aquatic Centre move remained an option despite significant restrictions and issues, it is understood this is now permanently off the books.
The Crows’ plan to demolish the aquatic centre and build a $65 million training and administrative complex, which had faced stiff opposition from parklands campaigners and some nearby residents, was shelved in April because of the coronavirus pandemic hit to AFL budgets.
BACK ON THE TOOLS
Former ICAC boss Bruce Lander, who left the post on September 1 when his seven-year term expired, is moving back into Jeffcott Chambers, where he was a founding member all the way back in 1980.
But any qualms that the legal high-flyer might increase competition for big cases in the tight-knit legal community are unfounded as Lander told Off the Record that he would be concentrating on “mediation and arbitration’’.
“I won’t be taking briefs, I don’t want to appear in court anymore,’’ he said.
He said he was also not intending, at this stage, to renew his practising certificate.
Lander was spotted at Adelaide Central Markets institution Lucia’s catching up with former Attorney-General John Rau.
Rau was AG when Lander was appointed as ICAC in 2013.
Rau said he had planned to catch up with Lander when his term as ICAC had finished.
But he said it was a low-key coffee. “It was ‘how you going?’, ‘what are you up to?’, all very mundane, nothing that would be of interest,’’ Rau said.
Rau himself is happily ensconced in Murray Chambers, concentrating on civil litigation in the employment tribunal
“It’s a nice change from what I was doing before,’’ he said.
ST NICK’S CHRISTMAS TRADITION
The key question around Nick Reade’s decision to leave BankSA to head up the Department of Premier and Cabinet is whether his successor will maintain the tradition of putting on a Christmas lunch for Adelaide’s media types.
It was nothing over the top, but for the past six years it’s been a small but lively get together where the successes and missteps of the state’s political and business elites – and all the juicy “off the record” stories you’ll never see in print – were discussed over a bottle of red or two.
The government credit card probably doesn’t stretch to such indulgences but arguably this sort of feedback from the Fourth Estate would be, if anything, more valuable in Reade’s new role. Maybe he’ll have to move to more intimate tete-a-tete’s at former DPAC boss Jim McDowell’s regular haunt, Part Time Lover, behind the Town Hall.
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Originally published as Adelaide Crows examine Thebarton Oval, Showground and parklands for headquarters
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