It is often said there is no such thing as a new idea. But they sure can get bolder.
The Brisbane Design Alliance’s slightly pie-in-the-sky proposal for a $6 billion development at Hamilton,with a 60,000-seat Olympic stadium at its centre,borrowed heavily from a 26-year-old proposal for the same site.
Back in 1998,then-premier Rob Borbidge proposed a new stadium for the industrial wasteland on the north bank of the Brisbane River.
Enter the Rivercity consortium,which pitched a 65,000-seat rectangular stadium,an 8000-seat international tennis centre,two hotels,a boat harbour and marina development,residential offerings and more than two kilometres of public walkways.
Effectively,the development on the 84-hectare site was to be Brisbane’s answer to Sydney’s Olympic precinct at Homebush.
The cost of the entire project was estimated to be a comparatively modest $900 million,back when $900 million could really buy you something.
The election of the Beattie Labor government a few months later blew full-time on the Rivercity stadium,paving the way for thehugely successful Suncorp Stadium renovation.
But this week has seen the Hamilton stadium’s return – this time an oval shape,much more ambitious and much more expensive.
In today’s terms,the 1998 proposal would have cost about $1.8 billion – still $4.2 billion shy of BDA’s ambitious vision,which is Rivercity on steroids.