Search on for location of Tasmania AFL team’s $60m training headquarters

A high-performance centre for Tassie’s AFL team will be built three years before Mac Point stadium’s scheduled opening, with a local legend helping narrow down the search for a suitable site.

Brisbane’s $80 million base. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

A high-performance centre for Tasmania’s AFL team will be built before Macquarie Point stadium at a central Hobart location and will be “at least the equal” of the state-of-the-art training bases of other AFL clubs.

The training base and administration centre would be the home of the Tasmanian AFL and AFLW teams and provide the facilities to attract, develop and retain elite athletes, said the Tasmanian club’s inaugural chairman Grant O’Brien.

Several sites have been identified and one will be selected as soon as possible so planning and development can start next year.

Appointed chairman by the AFL’s top brass and state government at his home town Penguin on Friday, O’Brien hopes to have it ready for Tasmania’s debut in the VFL in 2025 followed by the AFL debut in 2028.

Tasmanian AFL Team Chairman Grant O'Brien at Dial Park, Penguin. Picture: Grant Viney

“It’s not just a facility for the footy team,” O’Brien said.

“It’s a facility for the community _ the community gets to use it when the club is not using it, whether that be the pool or the gym or whatever.

“That’s what we’ve got in mind – it’s a really critical facility for Tassie.”

The Brisbane Lions built an $80m base for its men’s and women’s teams with a 10,000-seat boutique stadium to be used for AFLW games and men’s practice matches.

AFL training bases typically boast swimming pools, spas, ice baths, saunas, gymnasiums, auditoriums, indoor “fields”, indoor sprint tracks, men’s and women’s locker rooms, merchandise shops, function facilities, museums, outdoor running tracks and a full-size playing field.

Brisbane Lions AFLW players Bella Dawes, Natalie Grider, and Shannon Campbell at their new Springfield training base, Brighton Homes Arena. Picture Lachie Millard

The state government committed $60m “to assist in the establishment” of the Tasmanian team headquarters, with State Growth in charge of the site search.

Likely locations are believed to include the Domain, Cornelian Bay, the soon-to-be vacant University of Tasmania’s Sandy Bay campus, Lower Queenborough Oval and the Twin Ovals in Kingston.

“It [an elite facility] is an important part of the invitation of players to come to the club and it’s also important for retention,” O’Brien said.

“What a wonderful facility to have for the local players and particularly kids to aspire to use something that’s at least the equal to what there is in the AFL at the moment.”

As part of the 19th licence agreement signed on May 3, the AFL agreed to invest $358 million into Tasmanian football including:

• $15 million into the 23,000-seat roofed Macquarie Point stadium.
• $10 million into the club’s training and administration.
• $90 million in game development.
• $33 million into development of young male and female talent.
• $210 million in distributions to the new club over the first 10 years.

O’Brien’s priority is to appoint Tasmania Football Club’s first board and get the ball rolling on the training and administration hub.

“We are working on having approval for that next year and for it to be in place ideally before the start of the VFL team, so 2025,” he said.

“There’s obviously work to be done on planning and site selection, which are time-sensitive.

“I will be talking to the government in the next couple of weeks because that’s work they have been advancing.

“I’ve seen some early stuff on it but I need to get updated on where they are at.”

Nick Riewoldt.

The site will be located “ideally close to the city”, based on advice from Tasmanian-born St Kilda legend Nick Riewoldt.

“This is where Nick Riewoldt has been very influential in his views in regard to what St Kilda had done,” O’Brien said.

“Their first step was a miss-step and then they got it right.

“That was to have it away from a commercial centre, and Nick was pretty clear, and we are clear, that it needs to be close-in.

“That would be ideal for a couple of reasons, not the least of which when you are talking about the new St Kilda facility, it’s not just a facility for the footy team, it’s a facility for the community.”