Cairns Olympic stadium plans: Major seat upgrades revealed for football

Olympic overhaul plans for Barlow Park have been revealed in an obscure document that helped Queensland secure the 2032 Games – but forces are at play to make the facility even bigger, better and bolder.

OLYMPIC overhaul plans for Barlow Park have been revealed in an obscure document that helped Queensland secure the 2032 Games.

However, forces are at play to make the facility even bigger, better and bolder.

The city’s current excuse for a stadium has been touted for desperate upgrades for years to no avail.

Efforts have been hampered by talk of a potential greenfield rectangular arena being built elsewhere, plus the city’s lack of a national-level sporting team to make the project worthwhile.

Chatter of a brand new stadium has gone nowhere, and now the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has laid its cards on the table.

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In a “future host questionnaire” sent to the International Olympic Committee in May, the AOC set out the legacy strategy it would prosecute if it won hosting rights.

The document included a rundown of specific venues with Barlow Park earmarked for 5000 new seats as “legacy seating capacity”.

It said the stadium would have a total capacity of 20,000 seats during soccer preliminaries and quarterfinal matches but 15,000 would be temporary.

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An increase to 5000 seats would be significant – up from the current 1700 – but a campaign is building to make the remaining 15,000 seats permanent as well.

Enterprise North chief Kevin Byrne has been leading a Cairns stadium lobby group to push for Barlow Park to be upgraded to a 20,000-seat facility.

He said the project’s first phase would cost $120m – calculated using a standard cost-per-seat algorithm – and deliver enormous benefits to the region.

“We’ve been doing the raw numbers and believe we can get a stadium of 16,000 minimum seats in Stage 1, which would be in the next five years,” he said.

“An additional 4000 seats would take us up to 20,000 in Stage 2 over the subsequent five-year block. That would take us up to 2032.”

It dovetails in nicely with the AOC’s own plans to deliver 5000 seats as legacy infrastructure.

Building a stadium from scratch would be a much more expensive affair.

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“Barlow Park is within walking distance or a $10 cab fare from the city, has easy access to public transport, it’s very close to accommodation,” Mr Byrne said.

“The land is already in place, it’s owned by the council, so these are just raw construction numbers.

“It’s an ideal place to have an international-standard rectangular sports arena.”

There is one hitch in the plan – the athletics facilities.

Barlow Park is currently bounded by running tracks which would have to be moved elsewhere to get the atmosphere and bang-for-buck needed to make a rectangular stadium work.

Mr Byrne believed another facility could be built near the stadium itself.

Enterprise North and the Northern Frontier Foundation have released a new plan on how to create a 20,000-seat rectangular stadium at Barlow Park in Cairns, as well as other major sporting and associated infrastructure including fields, courts, extensive parking and athletics tracks. PICTURE: SUPPLIED

“The fact is that we don’t need athletics for the Olympics, we need it for domestic purposes,” he said.

Funding would have to come from state or federal grants, or a long-term loan to Cairns Regional Council from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

FNQ Football administrator Alex Srhoj said it was time to ride the Olympics momentum and finally get the city what it deserved.

“It’s one of the biggest hurdles to us being able to attract a possible World Cup women’s training base to Cairns in two years,” he said.

Enterprise North and the Northern Frontier Foundation have released a new plan on how to create a 20,000-seat rectangular stadium at Barlow Park in Cairns, as well as other major sporting and associated infrastructure including fields, courts, extensive parking and athletics tracks. PICTURE: SUPPLIED

“We don’t have any facilities that tick the boxes.”

Mr Srhoj warned simply building a grandstand was not enough – there needed to be adequate change room facilities, lighting and playing surfaces for top sports.

“The fact is that the 2032 Olympics are now definite and we’re on the radar for a women’s World Cup training base in a couple of years," he said.

“Time is ripe. If we can’t make it happen now, I don’t know when we ever will.”

Originally published as Cairns Olympic stadium plans: Major seat upgrades revealed for football