Western United’s $2bn sport and property plan could transform Melbourne’s west
Meet the entrepreneur behind one of the most ambitious – some say impossible – projects in Australian sports business.
Meet the Melbourne entrepreneur behind one of the most ambitious – some say almost impossible – projects in Australian sports business.
Jason Sourasis, 45, heads a group promising to build the first privately owned rectangular stadium, set to cost at least $130m, as part of almost $1bn being spent on what is claimed to be the first sporting public-private partnership in Australia.
Sourasis is the chairman of fledgling A-League soccer club Western United, which has received state planning approval to undertake a huge $2bn commercial and residential property project at Tarneit in Melbourne’s fast-growing but infrastructure-poor western suburbs.
It is poised to be the biggest deal in Australian sports business history, with a 15,000 seat outdoor stadium the centrepiece of a 62.5ha project that would take about seven years to complete.
The outdoor arena will be surrounded by several new apartment blocks up to seven levels high, housing subdivision lots, a hotel, commercial office space, an indoor sports arena, training and medical facilities, shops, bars and parkland.
Sourasis and his group have already spent $50m raised from investors, who include wealthy Melbourne families and athletes such as tennis player Thanasi Kokkinakis, Collingwood AFL captain Scott Pendlebury, Essendon’s Dyson Heppell, Jack Zeibell and Jy Simpkin and Australian bronze medal-winning Olympic basketballers Dante Exum and Chris Goulding.
Almost $20m of that went on winning the A-League licence, another $5m working capital for the team and the remainder on planning, consulting and preparatory work on the site the team is developing with the local Wyndham Council.
Sourasis says another $50m is now needed to get the project fully under way, money he says is accounted for or can be raised from new or existing investors.
Yet, Sourasis and Western United have their fair share of sceptics. Their project is common in US sport, where big teams develop property around stadiums to generate revenue outside of match days. But it has not been done in Australia before on this scale. The club has kept quiet as it worked through planning approval and previous setbacks.
Western United gained its A-League licence in late 2018, based in part on its relationship with construction business Probuild, which has since collapsed and left a pipeline of projects worth $5bn in limbo.
At the time, Western United management predicted it would be in its new stadium within about two years. Sourasis now admits that announcing that timeline publicly was “naive” given the complexity and time needed to gain government approval. While Western United didn’t end up signing a construction contract with Probuild, it has spent more than two years working on gaining state government planning permission – which came through in February – while its A-League team has shifted between temporary home grounds in Melbourne, Ballarat and Tasmania.
But Sourasis promises the project in Melbourne’s west will go ahead and that he has sufficient funding, and claims he will have deals done within about three months to have a construction partner for the stadium and the residential component that will culminate in about 1000 dwellings that will help pay off the debt he raises for the stadium building.
“I’d say (in) three years definitely, we’re in our main stadium. But we’re in our precinct within the next 12 to 18 months, yes,” Sourasis tells The Weekend Australian. “This project is the first of its kind in Australia, a sport entertainment-driven district. It is ambitious and we’ve had our critics, but now we’ve got planning approval and with pre-works (on the site) already happening we’re looking forward to creating something unique.”
Construction started in March on a training facility with a 5000 seat stadium that will host Western United’s women’s team and its A-League men’s team while the bigger stadium is built. The club could be in the smaller stadium, he says, towards the end of the next 2022-23 season.
In a country where big arenas such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Gabba in Brisbane and Perth’s Optus Stadium are owned by state authorities (but not AFL’s Marvel Stadium in Melbourne’s Docklands), Western United will if all goes to plan control their own stadium and all the revenues associated with it.
Sourasis projects the stadium will generate at least $12m in revenue and pre-tax profits of $3m or more from soccer games, events such as community gatherings, farmers markets, food festivals and concerts. It will have seats on three sides, and the fourth will feature a big scoreboard screen and space for events.
Sourasis would welcome some state government funding for the project and says infrastructure, such as a new railway station nearby, is badly needed. “We’re in talks with the government … the west needs more than one station. It needs two or three. We are hopeful.”
Sourasis points out that his group does not necessarily need government money, even though soccer receives less funding than the AFL and other competitions despite a lot of junior players.
Having made his family fortune in Melbourne commercial property and then in financial planning, Sourasis turned his hand to investing with and on behalf of a group of wealthy Melbourne individuals and families.
Sourasis’s portfolio includes a stake of about 13 per cent in the ASX-listed Toys R Us business that he helped rescue with a $35m funding package at the height of the pandemic, and the Hemisphere athlete management group that has up to 100 AFL players on its books.
He also manages more than $300m for clients via his Strategic Group, has a string of early stage technology investments including nanotechnology and property sector app firms, hospitality venues and property development projects. But the Western United project is the biggest deal Sourasis and his private Jaszac Investments have undertaken. “There’s 7.5ha of commercial space, including an arena, allied health and medical. We’re looking at a hotel and office space, which we would lease out,” he says.
“The residential is 40ha, and now it is a case of whether we do it ourselves, or do a development management agreement. We will know within three months and we have had plenty of interest.
“The planning approval we’ve got gives us flexibility to go up to seven levels at our discretion, which is amazing. We bypass the whole planning process now. No need to advertise, no community consultation needed. We’re shovel-ready.”
Now Sourasis has to deliver at a time when soccer is struggling in Australia. But the A-League now has a $140m funding injection from private equity firm Silver Lake and is investigating some property investments. Sourasis says the league may put money into his project. “We know the league has to do better with its broadcast and with its technology. There’s a lot of work to do with the game.
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