Adapt or die: surviving the Games
Propped up by NSW Government handouts, some Olympic venues are finding new roles to justify their continued existence, write Tim Dick and Mark Coultan.
Every Tuesday night about 70 drivers take their cars to speed around the car park at the Sydney International Regatta Centre. The bright, souped-up vehicles race in 10 divisions, from novice to "top gun", all endorsed by the centre.
These are no doughnut-loving hoons. Rather, the radio-controlled miniature cars are raced by the Penrith District Nitro Racing club and provide much-needed revenue for the centre.
It's a snapshot of the future for many of Sydney's former Olympic venues - the need to find new uses for these excellent but specialised facilities to wean themselves off public subsidies.
For example, Sydney Olympic Park has cost NSW more than $150 million in running costs since the Olympics, plus $60 million in capital works - although more than $40 million has been returned to the State Treasury from asset sales.
The Premier, Bob Carr, says: "Part of the legacy of the Games was always going to be a surplus of sporting facilities and excess capacity in some areas. But over time demand will catch up. We seem to be seeing this happen with Telstra Stadium, which I'm advised is now profitable. I think that's the way we have to look at it.
"We sought an Olympic Games distinguished by first-class sporting facilities. Some of them achieved maximum use as soon as they were opened, for example, the aquatic centre. Others have achieved that gradually, like the stadium."
He says facilities for some sports, which had no strong following in Australia before the Games, were always going to struggle afterwards.
The Greens MP, Lee Rhiannon, says that in some cases the Government may be justified in bulldozing venues and building facilities, such as basketball courts, the community wants to use.
Most venues are battling to survive by attracting new users. Others are already valued by local communities.
The International Regatta Centre's self-generated income languishes at just over a quarter of what the State Government gives it. The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources has refused to divulge the centre's unaudited revenue and expenses for the latest financial year, or provide forecasts or estimates, but it was quick to praise itself for lifting revenue by 160 per cent since the Olympics.
If that is true then revenue is still only $520,000 - a quarter of what it costs to run the centre.
Despite the department's reluctance to reveal the numbers, it is clear the centre costs the taxpayer a truckload of money, but so do many public parks.
Centennial Park, for instance, cost more than $18 million in 2002-03, including $6.4 million in state grants.
As the regatta centre's manager, Kevin Flynn, points out, many people in Sydney's west see it as just that.
"There's somewhat of a perception that, while we're a sporting venue, we're a park," he says, because it is open from sunrise to sunset.
People come to push prams, walk dogs, fish and have barbecues as well as those who come to canoe and row, all part of Flynn's efforts to broaden the base of people who use the facility.
"In the lead-up to the Games, everything culminated ... in the event. Since then, there's been, not a move away from looking after the high performance, [but] trying to involve the community a lot more," he says.
It was the top triathlon venue in the state, if not the country, he says, while the centre was chasing corporate events, was a landing spot for skydivers and was seeking permission to allow people to go swimming.
The $42 million Dunc Gray Velodrome "was always going to lose money", according to its manager, Peter Johnston, but like the other venue managers, he's trying to diversify its operations to lessen the drain on the coffers of its operator, Bankstown Sports Club. The club has installed a tavern, The Handle Bar, with 15 poker machines to help with costs. It also hires the 3000 square metre infield to a youth gymnastics club to use every afternoon.
The Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation is talking to the NSW Police about increasing its use of the Sydney International Shooting Centre as a training facility.
Racing NSW is expected to announce today a strategy that would take over the Sydney International Equestrian Centre lease as a training centre while keeping it open for big events.
Blacktown Olympic Park, home of softball and baseball, is looking to AFL for its future, with manager Kevin Jones wanting it to become the training venue for interstate teams. "We've got to keep it growing. We're proactively going after things [and] we've got to be quite open about it as well."
Mike Griffin, director of the Sydney International Tennis Centre, says: "If I relied on hiring tennis courts, I wouldn't make money. Basically we are a multi-use function centre." This includes children's programs, business functions and conferences, he says.
Almost all venues would love a share of corporate events but this is a highly competitive market, although Sydney Olympic Park expects a 30 to 50 per cent increase per year for the next five years.
Sometimes one venue feeds off another. The SuperDome was host to many corporate functions during last year's Rugby World Cup.
Sydney Olympic Park, which has the largest concentration of former Olympic venues, is being marketed under one banner rather than as individual venues.
Homebush Bay is the biggest challenge. Carr says the Government hopes to see the area "fleshed out with residential and commercial development. It will be a new suburb linked to the central business district by excellent public transport, surrounded by a great urban park."
The Sydney Olympic Park Authority's mission is to manage all the venues in the precinct, as well as develop an area that is financially self-sustaining.
Brian Newman, the authority's chief executive officer, says: "Sydney Olympic Park occupies a very special place in people's hearts and minds and everyone wants it to be successful. And it is successful, and it will be more successful and realise a greater legacy from that Olympic investment over time.
"These processes take time and I'm extremely confident that in 15 to 20 years' time you won't recognise this precinct. It will still play its role as the major events precinct in Australia ... but it will be a far more urban, lively, vibrant place than it is today."
The authority is trying to encourage people to live in the area in order to give it more life outside major events. It has agreed to plans to develop three 20-storey residential towers as well as a commercial development.
But it may have missed the property boat. The $350 million Multiplex development, which includes 560 apartments, won't start until there are 50 per cent pre-commitments.
Newman says everyone knows the market has gone off the boil but that the area will provide better investment growth than elsewhere in Sydney.
His authority benefits only indirectly from selling sites to developers. The money goes to the NSW Treasury. Sydney Olympic Park will have to look to increased revenue from operating business leases on the site, car parking revenue and lower costs.
Newman says the planned residential towers won't give the area the critical mass he is after. He is keen to establish a school and other educational facilities at Homebush Bay.
"Our job today is about the transformation of the precinct from primarily an events precinct to a really vibrant and sustainable township and building on a lot of the legacies and assets here. It may be at least 10 years before Sydney Olympic Park establishes that critical mass of people who are living, working and learning here, and we achieve that level of vibrancy that we are after, but these things don't happen overnight."
The authority is doing little to encourage community groups to use the idle space at Homebush, according to the Reverend Graham Guy.
The former Presbyterian minister is trying to establish the Christian Sydney Olympic Park Fellowship but is frustrated by a lack of discount rates for community groups to use vacant rooms and the cost of train fares for worshippers to get there.
"They just don't want community groups in there," he says. "They are not realising the potential market for churches and Islamic groups and community groups."
And if more people are on site, "their market starts to work", with churchgoers spending money at shops and venues on the way to and from their destination, he says.