Architects confident stadium can be built within budget

Architects tasked with designing Hobart’s new stadium are confident the $715 million price tag will cover the project, despite sporting infrastructure elsewhere in Australia blowing out.

COX Architecture, involved in the redeveloped Adelaide Oval, Perth’s Optus Stadium and Sydney’s Allianz Stadium, was on Thursday revealed as the lead design consultant for Macquarie Point.

The 23,000-seat roofed stadium planned for the Hobart waterfront site is a condition of Tasmania’s entry into the AFL, slated for 2028.

Macquarie Point Development Corporation CEO Anne Beach said concept designs would be released in June.

Questions have been raised about whether the stadium, part of a broader redevelopment at the site, can be built within budget.

The $1.6 billion cost for 61,000-seat Optus Stadium and $874 million for Allianz Stadium were beyond initial estimates.

Tasmania’s Liberal government, which signed the AFL and stadium deal, has pledged to cap the state’s spend at $375 million – with private investment to cover overruns.

“We are confident that $715 million is appropriate for the project,” COX Architecture director Alastair Richardson said.

“The aim is we will be within that budget.”

Mr Richardson said he was keen to make sure the stadium’s visual impact on the nearby cenotaph was kept to a minimum, after RSL Tasmania raised concerns.

“(We) want to make sure it engages with the streetscape and is respectful to the cenotaph,” he said.

“(We’re) wary of the renders done last year – they give some clues of what we don’t want to do.

“This building needs to be scaled, transparent, open, something that actually has engagement with the city and not a concrete wall.”

Architects say old renders of the proposed stadium will inform their design. (HANDOUT/AFL)

Mr Richardson and Ms Beach said they were confident the stadium could sit comfortably size-wise at the site.

“We have done extensive work last year looking at benchmarking, field sizes – we know it can fit, with room … for a mixed-use precinct,” Ms Beach said.

A heritage-listed rail shed at Macquarie Point would likely be relocated elsewhere on the site, she said.

COX Architecture’s consultancy will cost $37 million, which sits within the stadium spend.

The announcement came on the same day TasWater revealed it would cost $314 million to relocate sewerage works from Macquarie Point, more than double the initial estimate.

The state government will pay about 70 per cent of the cost, with TasWater to foot the remainder.

State attorney-general Guy Barnett said there were always expectations of an increase, with the initial estimate several years old.

The ABC has reported private capital firm Plenary Group wants to partner with the state government to deliver the stadium.

Plans face assessment by the state’s planning commission and must be voted through both houses of parliament.

The stadium jumped a massive political hurdle earlier this week when state Labor announced their support after years of opposition.