Hawthorn moves closer to new $60m Dingley base

HAWTHORN has moved a step closer to securing a new home that it hopes will be the foundation of the club for 100 years.

HAWTHORN has moved a step closer to securing a new home that it hopes will be the foundation of the club for 100 years.

The Hawks on Thursday lod­ged a planning permit for the proposed super headquar­ters on 28ha at Dingley.

Hawthorn, which will be gunning for a fourth successive flag next year, also released key details of its masterplan for the Old Dandenong Rd site, which includes a world-leading training base with space to accommodate new ­facilities well into the 22nd century.

It includes three ovals — an MCG-sized ground with extra room to allow for running drills; an Etihad Stadium-sized ground, and another which could host a women’s team and VFL training.

The development will cost $40 to $60 million and could take five to 10 years to build.

Hawks chief executive ­Stuart Fox said a final call on the project’s viability would be made by mid-to-late next year.

“We hope the site can cater for us for 100 years and ­beyond,” Fox said.

“Our goal is to future-proof the club so we won’t need ­another move for hundreds of years.”

“While our planning permit is for a stage one development, the exciting part of this land is that we can grow the facility as we change.

A move by the Hawks to a new base at Dingley is gaining momentum.

“We are motivated to deliver this as soon as we can, but it is more about delivering something that is going to be seen as a great decision for the club in 100 years’ time. Hopefully future players, future administrators, future members and future fans will think how fortunate they are to have this parcel of land.”

Long considered one of the AFL’s innovators, Hawthorn has outgrown Waverley Park after 11 years and after a feasibility study looked at various parcels of lands to allow for future developments.

Hawthorn is believed to have the capacity to purchase the land outright — for about $7 million — and has already made a conditional offer to buy the site at the end of 2016, pending the due diligence of a planning application to the Kingston City Council and an environment examination of the land, part of which was used as a landfill site.

The club is a financial powerhouse, last month reporting a $3.3m profit for the year and revealing it had received a further $2.5m in donations.

The club has said its foundation has $6.5m in cash and investments which could be used for major projects such as Dingley.

Fox said: “While we are very excited by the project, we are also quite measured because we don’t want to build expectation until it is 100 per cent.”

Hawthorn players Zac Webster, Paul Puopolo, Ryan Schoenmakers and Jordan Lewis sweat it out at Waverley Park. Picture: Colleen Petch

The club’s administration is working on a strategy on funding the $40m to $60m required for stage one, with the board to learn more about its options next year.

“That’s a challenge,” Fox said. “We are well aware it is a long-term vision, but you have to aim high and we’ve got an expectation that we are going to deliver this.

“We think it is going to be a five-to-10 year project to get it fully delivered.”

Fox said the club’s research into English Premier League clubs had shown them the importance of securing parcels of land that could adapted over decades.

“Some of the big EPL (English Premier League) clubs have gone and bought 100 and 200-hectare sites,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean you have to build on every part of the land, but it means they have future-proofed themselves for many, many years.”