Despite the world health crisis, work on the $730m rebuild of the Sydney Stadium will get underway this week and is scheduled to be completed in September 2022, according to the New South Wales government’s announcement on Wednesday.
The rebuild of the site next to the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground was part of a controversial $2 billions scheme to overhaul the Sydney’s portfolio of stadiums.
The plan to replace the 83,000-seat ANZ Stadium at Homebush was downgraded to a refurbishment before being shelved due to the financial strains caused by the Covid-19 crisis; however, the SFS had already been demolished.
The initial contractors were sacked after razing the arena but their rebuild has been worked amid the Covid-19 lockdown and has started pouring the 40,000 cubic meters of concrete that will provide the foundations.
Acting state sports minister Geoff Lee said that this is another exciting milestone that sets the foundations for the Sydney Football Stadium to start rising from the ground.
The new stadium was designed to have two modes, a 30,000-seat club layout with a screen masking the top tier of seats, which would be removed to allow 15,000 additional fans to watch marquee football and rugby games.
The rebuilt stadium is planned to host the NRL grand final in October 2022 and matches at football’s Women’s World Cup in 2023, which the country will cooperate to host with New Zealand.
The stadium, which hosted five matches at the Rugby World Cup in 2003, will also be a cornerstone of Australia’s bid to host the competition in 2027.
The refurbishment project was a major issue during the state elections in 2009 with the opposition Labor Party saying that they would scrap the scheme. However, the governing Liberal Party finally won the election.