Consortium planning Ak waterfront stadium

AUCKLAND: An Auckland property valuer is heading a consortium planning a new stadium on port land along the Auckland waterfront.

‘‘I can confirm there is a consortium and it is looking at a stadium development and we have spoken to the mayor,’’ Dave Wigmore said yesterday.

Mr Wigmore, a property adviser and valuer, said he was chairing a group of wellknown professionals in Auckland and hoped to make a public announcement by the end of next week. The plan is to build a stadium partly sunk into Bledisloe Wharf at the city end of Ports of Auckland.

Mr Wigmore did not dispute a report by Newsroom the consortium wants the rights to develop Eden Park for housing to offset the costly stadium.

‘‘I don’t think we can say too much other than we are talking to a wide range of stakeholders, which would obviously involve Eden Park,’’ Mr Wigmore said.

The Eden Park Trust Board has never been interested in moving from its 9ha site on the city fringe.

The park is administered by the trust and the ultimate beneficiaries are Auckland Rugby and Auckland Cricket.

Trust chairman Doug McKay said he met Mr Wigmore, an architect and a Simpson Grierson lawyer at the law firm last Friday.

He said a nondisclosure form was pushed across the table but he refused to sign anything.

‘‘They proceeded to look out the window from Simpson Grierson and say ‘that big wharf down there, that’s where we are putting the stadium . . . and we think we can do it without ratepayer funding’.’’

He said his interest was to ensure Eden Park survived for the next 10 or 20 years.

The idea to build a waterfront sports stadium has been around since the early 2000s and was resurrected before the Rugby World Cup.

Each time the idea has arisen, it has been shot down because of the substantial costs associated and failure to find agreement.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff floated the idea of a waterfront stadium shortly after being elected in 2016.

He was behind a recent prefeasibility study conducted by consulting firm PwC, which estimated it would cost between $1.1 billion and $1.5 billion to build the stadium in downtown Auckland.

Mr Goff said he had been approached by a private sector consortium of local businesses interested in building a downtown stadium. He said the council was not in a position to finance a stadium and it was not a priority. — NZME