Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Maze first favourite for stadium site…
The Press Association has a copy of the conclusions of a Price Waterhouse reportt on the viability of the plans to convert the Maze prison site into a sport stadium. The report was commissioned by the Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, Edwin Poots, a strong supporter of the Maze plan. However the report is with the Minister of Finance who is sure to give those figures a thorough going over.
Key Figures:
- first four years operation cost £37m.
- a 38,500-seat stadium
-hosting 23 major sporting and music events par
- just under 500,000 paying spectators.
It would appear to be the Maze or nothing…
Mick Fealty @ 09:18 PM
Mick
Alternatively, these figures would appear to be rather more key, as it were..
It is estimated that the stadium would cost £126 million to build and would need an additional £114 million investment to improve the transport infrastructure around the isolated site.
However, the consultants said a venue at Long Kesh had the potential to generate significant revenue and claimed that the overall cost to the taxpayer after the first fours years of operation would be £37 million.
As in, according to the projected figures, “a three sport stadium at the MLK site which has an NPC (net cost) of £36.9 million”
Posted by on Feb 19, 2008 @ 11:14 PMI think this was actually commissioned by the direct rule ministers but bottom line is build it at the Maze. Belfast Council couldn’t run a teddy bears picnic never mind a stadium and thats from a ratepayer whose being ripped off by the Council! Now just get on with it!
Posted by on Feb 19, 2008 @ 11:15 PMWhat about Sports Minister Poots describing Northern Ireland’s first gay rugby team as guilty of promoting a sporting apartheid…what a prick!
Posted by on Feb 19, 2008 @ 11:18 PMThe CL-CG can look after itself and f**k the rest.
Posted by on Feb 19, 2008 @ 11:45 PMShiny new stadium for NI now please. Anywhere. Don’t care. Fed up having to get a tetanus jab after every visit to windsor park’s bogs…
Posted by on Feb 19, 2008 @ 11:52 PMHistory tends to show that actual costs for new facilities like this are, at least, double the original estimate. In Canada at least.
Posted by on Feb 19, 2008 @ 11:57 PMJoeCan*uck, why would Norniron want to build a stadium in Canada?
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:02 AMFor the 500,000 spectators, they reckon on:
6 or 7 NI games
5 or 6 GAA games
3 Ulster rugby games
9 to 11 other non-sporting eventsSo it looks like the major “tenant” will be musical events rather than sporting events as they make up nearly half.
How can you invest an initial 240 million pounds (in the region of 400 million euros) on this level of “sporting” interest?
NI isn’t guaranteed to fill the stadium, Ulster Rugby is in the same position at the current time and unless the GAA gets the VAT exemption I reckon they won’t be holding the really big games there so they won’t fill it either.
You can hold musical events in open fields, you don’t need a 240 million pound venue.
I can’t see this project getting off the ground on these figures myself.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:06 AMI know this is off-topic, but I’m surprised that no-one on this site has posted a piece about Kosovo. Given the obvious parallels with NI, I thought this would be a must for Slugger!
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:07 AMYou’re absolutely correct George. This project has ‘city of Craigavon’ written all over it.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:10 AM“Hypothetically such an option would generate high visitor spending benefits because it is located closer to the city centre, but these are outweighed by the capital and infrastructure costs and the higher value of this site,”
So the accountants get paid fat fees for putting an extra ‘Hypothetically’ in where its only purpose is to make the Belfast proposal sound more iffy than the Maze one.
How would the belfast option ever not generate more visitor spending than the Lisburn option?
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:32 AMYou’re absolutely correct George. This project has ‘city of Craigavon’ written all over it.
Nail on the head. The fact is that the infrastructure is not there for a 30,000 seater stadium to be located at the Maze. It borders on insanity to want to build this stadium there. We are given estimates for the cost of building the actual stadium - how much extra will it cost to build an extra sliproad/roundabout off the M1/A1, to get rail links to the ground and to provide an adequate bus service? It is a huge white elephant in the making.
If the overwhelming source of revenue is likely to be from staging concerts at it too then what is the point in building it in a field 3 miles outside Lisburn? Hardly very accessible for anyone wanting to go see their favourite band play - is it? Belfast is the only viable option and if there is too much resistance to it being sited there then scrap the whole idea and revamp Windsor Park (from an NI football perspective) because at the end of the day only the IFA, out of the GAA and Ulster Rugby and themselves, are crying out for this stadium to be built.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:43 AMA dead-duck.
But, sure, a nice-little-earner for some.
;-)
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 12:43 AMThis is truely insane. Sometimes you get the report you paid for!
We are contemplating spending roughly a quarter of a billion pounds (estimate so likely to be more) so that 500,000 spectators can watch 25-30 games?***!!!! I actually cannot believe my eyes.
We then hope that revenue would account for over £200,000,000 and thus reduce the cost to the taxpayer to a mere £36,900,000. Ohh please sprinkle the balance sheet with a bit more pixie dust and the whole problem will disappear.We should maximise our return on the Maze site by using it for housing and invest that money in a stadium in Belfast where non sporting activity will increase revenue and where spin off investment is more likely.
If we are not projecting a healthy profit we should leave this project well alone. Imagine the projected figures increased by roughtly 20%; all off a sudden the tax payer is coughing up £100,000,000. Will revenue cover running and maintenance costs? Will it cover the interest on the money contributed by the tax payer?
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 02:33 AMIn the movie, Shaun Woodward tells Poots, played by Kevin Costner: “If you build it, they will come.”
Sadly, baseball wasn’t one of the sports being played there.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 03:11 AMI actually cannot believe my eyes.
You’re lucky Crataegus. All of my senses have gone into overload.
Leave this one to the private sector and if someone (Seymour?) thinks they can make a profit, sell them the site for a peppercorn.Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 03:12 AMThe only conclusion I arrive at is that it would be a massive waste of public money. Being in the red that much after four years is not a positive projection.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 03:30 AMSurely last week’s chaos on the arterial routes leading to the Odyssey is proof testament that inner city Belfast could not possibly cope with large crowds descending on a new stadium. Attempts to hold aloft Maysfield and Ormeau Park as viable venues are laughable in the extreme aa the latest infrastructure inadequacy has highlighted. Apart from that, the residents in these areas (including the esteemed First Minister)don’t want a stadium foisted upon them.
Nonetheless let the Anti-Maze Vanguard, led by NI fans, continue to march up a blind alley thus increasing the risk of not getting a new stadium built at all. -keep pishing in the wind, lads.Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 09:15 AMWhy would the GAA want to use this….
When they`ve spent a fortune on Casement Park…
A more acceptable venue….where symbols of our Irish identity….
wil not offend the Neanderthal burgers of the township of Lisburn…..
No Dogs,Blacks,Irish or Taigs please….
We`re christians….
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:04 AMCrazy stuff - £240m for a stadium to be used 23 days a year?
Surely even our MLAs couldn’t agree to that?
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:15 AMOverall cost after 4 years is £37m ... does this mean they reckon the stadium will generate income of £203m during that period???
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:17 AMLooks like DCAL gave PwC their watch and PwC told them the time.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:18 AMthis new report looks remarkably similar in its conclusions to the previous 2005 one (available on dcalni website) which was a clear case of he who pays the piper calling the tune - it was an unabashed fit-up job where PwC had obviously been briefed to produce a report with a veneer of robustness which concluded that the Maze was the only viable option.
Which they duly did - and a crap bit of work it was too. for example, they narrowed the field to 3 sites for deeper analysis, and then before they moved on to a cost-benefit analysis quoted the GAA as refusing to countenance either Belfast site (N. Foreshore and Titanic) and on that pretext narrowed the field to one before performing the analysis. The GAA promptly denied having vetoed the Belfast sites, undermining the analysis a little..
From memory the cost assumptions for the Maze were nothing like the £150m to £240m being quoted now.
To be honest I can’t see this ever happening. Every so often there’s a new report which says that “the Maze is the only option” then it dies down again. It’s just such a patently crap idea, and by all accounts, has some weighty opponents in teh Assembly.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:19 AMHope you’re right, lafcadio, but I fear that the Provo desire to build the Terror Shrine combined with the Lisburn-vanity-merchants and the anti-Belfast-brigade in the DUP may add up to more MLAs than the sensible ones.
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:23 AMshould be dead in the water now
Posted by on Feb 20, 2008 @ 11:49 AM
