Westfield’s Frank Lowy intervenes in Hakoah Club’s White City stoush

AN eleventh-hour intervention by Westfield boss Frank Lowy has saved the prestigious Hakoah Club from continued infighting.

Frank Lowy at Allianz Stadium in Moore Park. Picture: Richard Dobson.

An eleventh-hour intervention by Westfield boss Frank Lowy has saved the prestigious Hakoah Club in Sydney’s eastern suburbs from continued infighting over a significant redevelopment of the iconic White City tennis club in Rushcutters Bay.

The long-running stoush pitted the board of Hakoah, a Jewish community sporting institution, led by George Farkas, against a dissident group with an alternate proposal, led by David Balkin, Carl Reid and Andrew Boyarksy.

Mr Lowy, who founded the club and served as its president for nearly two decades, wrote to members earlier this week asking for support for the board, which is close to lodging a development application to renovate the ageing 22,000sq m sports facility into a community space that could include football fields, an indoor aquatic centre and sporting complex, childcare facilities, restaurants, offices, and additional tennis courts.

Mr Balkin, Mr Reid and Mr Boyarksy had planned run for election for the board at last night’s annual general meeting and call for a second meeting next month to sack the remainder of the directors.

But after Mr Lowy’s intervention, those plans, which included selling off parts of the precinct, were put on hold.

“Critics of (the current) proposal have argued that the existing board has taken too long to progress any plans, that these plans are not financially viable and that the full-size football pitch will not get council approval,” Mr Lowy wrote.

“The competing proposal seems to be a pragmatic plan as its delivery would probably require less financial resources but at the expense of selling off land.

“I believe it is short-term in nature, producing substandard sporting facilities, questionable communal facilities and can only be done by selling off substantial parts of the site, something I fundamentally disagree with.”

But Mr Lowy warned if reasonable progress had not been made in 12 months, the board should resign to “make way for a new team to take an alternative plan forward”.

Redevelopment of White City, built in 1922 and used as a venue for several Davis Cup matches, has confounded some of Sydney’s most prominent business and sporting identities.