New football stadium unveiled
Perth's new sports stadium will cost about $860 million in 2014 dollars, 60 per cent of which will be provided by the taxpayer.
Premier Colin Barnett unveiled the new stadium design this morning and said contracts will be signed with Brookfield's WESTADIUM in the coming days.
"It will be without doubt the best sporting stadium in Australia," Mr Barnett said.
The State Government will fund 60 per cent of the cost with the remaining 40 per cent a financing package to be paid over 25 years.
Brookfield's John Flecker said the roof will be a steel and fabric "halo". The outside of the stadium will be covered with LED lights to show home team colours by night.
An indigenous theme will run strongly through the surrounding parkland precinct. Outside of the stadium there will be an amphitheatre and a playground.
Sports Minister Terry Waldron the stadium design had a "fans first" ethos.
The stadium will include two 240sqm screens behind the goals, 70 food and drink outlets in the stadium and surrounding precinct plus 1000 TV screens in the stadium interior.
There will also be 4G wifi access as well as more female toilets than males ones and six parenting rooms.
"Those requiring higher levels of access - such as people in wheelchairs - will be able to use designated seating platforms across all seating tiers," Mr Waldron said.
Fremantle chief executive Steve Rosich said the club was pleased the suggestions offered by prospective tenants had been taken on board in the design.
He said the next step was to finalise arrangements regarding the price of using the venue and make a decision regarding how those costs impacted the club’s membership base.
“We’ve started that process now and hopefully it can be resolved if not by the end of this calendar real (then) early next year,” he said.
He said the prospect of stadium memberships being offered alongside club memberships was one of the issues to be discussed over the next six months.
“It’s too early to say externally but there’s lots of modeling done, lots of research done,” he said.
“At the moment we sit at about 38-39,000 reserved seat members at Patersons Stadium and we think we can increase that.”
Physical pre-construction site works were recently completed six weeks ahead of schedule.
The new Perth Stadium is scheduled to open in time for the start of the 2018 AFL season.
The WESTADIUM consortium is led by Brookfield Financial and John Laing, with Brookfield Multiplex as builder and Brookfield Johnson Controls as facilities manager.
