Cairns rectangular stadium: City must choose one sporting arena plan
The city’s stadium dreams could hinge on a simple formula taught in primary schools all over Australia – length times width equals area. HAVE YOUR SAY
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UPDATE: The city’s stadium dreams could hinge on a simple formula taught in primary schools all over Australia – length times width equals area.
Proponents pushing for the city to finally get a rectangular sporting arena have called for Cairns to unite behind the concept and, ideally, a site.
Various leaders have flagged three locations – Barlow Park, the Cairns Showground or beside the Cairns Convention Centre – but consensus has been scarce.
Now a simple calculation has shed light on what the most feasible spot might be.
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Just the the new Queensland Country Bank Stadium building in Townsville is about 32,500sq m but the entire precinct – including entrance area, parking and other facilities – is closer to 72,000sq m.
Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch has touted land owned by investor Frank Gasparin beside the Cairns Convention Centre as the perfect site.
However, the property is only about 28,000sq m.
Parking facilities could spill over to the convention centre and other locations around the city, with shuttle bus links, but even fitting a stadium itself on the land would be a squeeze.
The Cairns Showground is 103,000sq m but Cairns Regional Council’s appetite for shifting the Cairns Show appears to have died.
However, it has plenty of space that could become hard-stand carparking, particularly at the southern end, to help bolster the third option.
The Barlow Park sporting precinct has its own issues – to find a new home for athletics, for one – but at 54,000sq m it should have plenty of space to accommodate a stadium.
Coupled with parking at the showground and developers would be spoiled for room.
Enterprise North executive manager Kevin Byrne is leading a group trying to drum up support for a stadium in Cairns and plans to launch a social media campaign in October.
Mr Byrne wrote to Mr Entsch on Monday to congratulate him for getting behind the movement, even if their ideas on location differed.
He has been on the record backing the Barlow Park option but said he was location “agnostic” – preferring to secure across-the-board support for a concept first.
“There is an undeniable fact staring at us and that is we are very poorly served with the absence of a suitable stadium for rectangular sports with the requisite capacity and facilities currently which sees the NRL not even programming NRL trial games here let alone premiership fixtures,” Mr Byrne said.
“Mackay were awarded two last weekend and Rockhampton and Bundaberg have prospered also as part of the NRL bubble in recent weeks.
“There will be oodles of opportunities in the years ahead for rectangular sports … ”
EARLIER: Interlopers from outside the state borders are trying to muscle in on Cairns’ dream of securing a world-class rectangular stadium in time for the 2032 Olympics.
The Northern Territory has shown a staggering level of disrespect by suggesting Darwin should get a slice of Olympic glory with a 25,000 seat arena.
They already have a site pegged out, the support of AFLNT chairman Sean Bowden and help from Lawrence Nield, a renowned architect who led the team that designed the Sydney Olympics venues.
Making matters worse, the proposal reportedly has the in-principle support of the Chamber of Commerce and Australian Hotels Association of the NT.
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Hospitality NT chief executive Alex Bruce left no doubt what the team was hoping to achieve.
“We think a strong sports tourism offering is critical for us maintaining competitiveness with Cairns and Townsville,” he said.
The NT stadium team thinks construction can start by 2026 if the Federal Government comes to the table, which would likely push back the Far North’s chances even further.
Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch has been campaigning for years for Cairns to establish itself as a top-three global tropical sport conditioning centre, with a stadium central to that plan.
He said Cairns had clear advantages over Darwin – international airport connectivity, accommodation and a less extreme climate – but the city needed to get behind a single idea and stick with it.
Townsville did that, and it got two stadiums compared to Cairns’ zero.
Mr Entsch has his favourite site – vacant land beside the Cairns Convention Centre – and believes soccer and rugby Super 7s could be the best sports to target.
“We are right in the zone,” he said.
The inability to lock down consensus on a stadium concept could still lead to Cairns being shouldered out by its rivals across the border.
Here are the three chief proposals our civic leaders have been trying to get across the line.
Which project should we get behind? Have your say in the comments below.
BARLOW PARK
The Australian Olympic Committee has outlined plans – albeit in an obscure document hardly anyone read – to leave 5000 new seats as an Olympic “legacy” at Barlow Park.
Strangely, that same document said the facility would have 20,000-seat capacity in total.
It appears 15,000 will be temporary.
Even an increase to 5000 seats would be a significant boost to the current 1700.
However, Enterprise North chief Kevin Byrne is leading a stadium lobby group to push for the full 20,000-seat overhaul.
His group has costed the project’s first 16,000-seat phase at $120m to be spent in the next five years.
An extra 4000 would be built over the remaining years before the Olympics.
PROS: Cheaper than building a stadium from scratch, central location, close to public transport, Australian Olympic Committee already has minor upgrade plans.
CONS: Athletics track would need to be moved off-site to achieve a truly rectangle stadium, and that would be both expensive and extremely controversial.
CAIRNS SHOWGROUND
Mayor Bob Manning was the driving force behind this proposal but appears to have gone cold in recent months and years.
He had been pushing for the Cairns Show Society to shift operations to Cannon Park Racecourse in Woree – but that plan fell flat when the organisation refused to move.
Cr Manning is a passionate rugby league supporter, even though his beloved Brisbane Broncos cannot catch a break, and thought securing an NRL team was the secret to getting a stadium.
He flew to Papua New Guinea in 2018 to talk with the country’s rugby league board of directors to discuss opportunities for a cross-border Cairns-PNG team in the national competition.
The dream has not materialised and Cr Manning is no longer publicly talking about a stadium – preferring to instead focus on an impending crisis if the city does not build a $215m new water security project.
PROS: Perfect location, heaps of parking, state-owned land.
CONS: Property is already used for the Cairns Show, and nobody wants to leave.
CONVENTION CENTRE
Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch has staked out a prime piece of real estate next door to the Cairns Convention Centre as his ideal location.
The land is owned by property developer Frank Gasparin with approvals in place to build three 25-storey towers, but it is questionable whether the projects will go ahead.
Mr Entsch said the Gasparin group was interested in the proposal, which would link up directly with the convention centre to drastically scale up the city’s exhibition potential.
He thought the Barlow Park proposal was a horrible idea.
“Why would you tear up a perfectly good, world-class athletics track?” he asked
“Across from the convention centre is a perfect site.
“It provides a hell of a lot more flexibility than Barlow Park because it’s no longer a stand-alone stadium, which in themselves generally tend to struggle.
“It can connect directly to the convention centre.”
Carparking under the convention centre could be used on game nights, as well as spaces across the city including the showground, Barlow Park and North Cairns sporting precinct with shuttle bus fares included in the price of tickets.
Mr Entsch wants to chase a 12,000-15,000-seat stadium at first, built so it can be gradually expanded into a 27,400-seat arena.
PROS: Greenfield site, connectivity to the convention centre, truly central location near the waterfront, easy public transport and parking potential.
CONS: Expensive to build from scratch, privately owned land.
Originally published as Cairns rectangular stadium: City must choose one sporting arena plan
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