Tauranga buying Bob's stadium in cut-price deal

By Graham Skellern
Bob Clarkson is selling his beloved Baypark stadium to Tauranga City Council for $12 million - just half of what he has spent on it.
Mr Clarkson, a leading Bay businessman and MP for Tauranga, is gifting the stadium facilities to the local community five years after taking great pride in reintroducing big time speedway and rugby to the city.
He has forked out $24m of his own money for a 20,000-seat oval stadium, a rugby-playing surface, changing rooms, offices, conference centre and car parking for up to 7000 vehicles.
In a generous deal, the council will pay for the Blue Chip Stadium at Te Maunga over a seven year period, putting down a $2m deposit and then paying $2m each year between 2009-13.
The city council - which will establish a new organisation to own and operate the high-profile facility - is confident the purchase price will be self-funded from the revenue generated by activities at the stadium during those years.
Speedway and rugby will continue to operate at the Baypark stadium.
The agreement, in principle, was driven by the council's need to get access to the leased Baypark site to build a proposed $30m indoor sports and exhibition centre - building could start later this year.
Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby said Mr Clarkson was providing an extraordinary gift to the city. The contribution he was making should not be under-estimated - it created the opportunity to get more capacity out of the facility in the future.
Mr Clarkson said he was not that hard-nosed and he didn't need the money right now.
"A lot of people won't understand ... but I've achieved what I set out to do by bringing speedway and the Bay of Plenty rugby base to Tauranga.
"Once I've achieved something, I do lose a bit of interest and I wanted to give the council and the city a break. They are getting a whole stadium, including parking, conference centre, corporate boxes, that hold 20,000 people for $12m," Mr Clarkson said.
"Look at the upgrade of Eden Park - it's costing $170m for putting in some more seats. And North Shore council has just paid off a $18m loan for the North Harbour Stadium.
"Of course it's a hell of gift. I had two private people interested in buying Baypark stadium and I wanted to give the council preferential treatment.
"In 10 years' time the money will be flowing at the stadium as the city's population grows and the crowds at the speedway and rugby get bigger. It will be easily self-funding," said Mr Clarkson.
The Baypark deal will be discussed by the city councillors on Monday and it will then become part of the annual plan deliberations and go out for public consultation.
A final decision will be made in mid-May and the Baypark purchase would be added to the 2006-16 long-term community plan.
The council wanted to establish a $30m, nine-court indoor arena - replacing the Mount Action Centre - and it can use existing Baypark facilities such as carparking, kitchen and toilets, producing a saving of between $3-$5m.
Baypark already had a resource consent for a 11,300sq m indoor facility that could stage large exhibitions and trade shows, netball, basketball and other indoor sports events.
Mr Clarkson initially wanted to build it but the earlier arrangement with the council fell over and, as time passed, he became increasingly frustrated by the red tape surrounding his stadium, particularly over the complaints of speedway noise.
Mr Crosby said Baypark was the best site for the sports and exhibition centre, which would have a life of 50 years and it was logical to have control of the site.
"We are not in the business of running speedway or rugby but we are in the business of providing indoor sports amenities.
"The new $30m centre would have had to operate on another sub-lease [at Baypark] and that would have been messy. Bob was of a mind to move on," he said.
Mr Crosby said all existing contracts would be honoured, involving catering, speedway promotion and Bay of Plenty Rugby Union tenancy.
A council-controlled organisation called Tauranga City Venues would be set up to run the Baypark facilities - similar to the structure for operating Baywave leisure and aquatic centre and the other public swimming pools.
It is hoped the Baypark ownership can be transferred to Tauranga City Venues on July 1 this year.
Mr Crosby said the new arrangements would mean the sports and exhibition centre could be brought forward 18 months and it could open in mid-2008 instead of 2010. "We are putting a group of people together now to look at the design and building of the centre."