Cape Town faces a further soccer World Cup shock as the real cost of the proposed stadium in Green Point could be closer to R3-billion than the R1,4-billion estimate that has been tabled before the mayoral committee.
A top city official, who asked Weekend Argus not to be named, said that transport and other infrastucture costs would double the real cost of the project.
He said the cost of the structure and providing services to the stadium had not been fully understood.
Robert McDonald, the spokesperson for mayor Helen Zille, said that she was aware that there were many extra costs involved along with the proposed new stadium.
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He said: "We have an undertaking from national and provincial government that the city will not be left in the dark to cover all the costs."
McDonald added that the city was going ahead with the planning of the stadium and would wait for the financial model to assess the full costs of the project and decide, along with the national and provincial governments who would pay for what.
The senior city official said the extra costs would include the implementation of road plans, including completion of the Foreshore flyovers, upgrading the currently insufficient electrical infrastructure along the Atlantic seaboard and the building of a light rail system to the stadium from the city centre.
He said there had also been under-estimates regarding the cost of constructing the stadium, especially the retractable roof.
The city official said that the report presented to the mayoral committee this week presented a cost of R1,4-billion but said that this was in fact not a fair estimate.
"That is just a conceptual estimate and does not include the design of the stadium. Architects and those in the building industry agree that with the current trend of construction costs they estimated the cost of the stadium to be closer to between R1,8-billion and R2-billion."
The official added that the estimated cost provided did not include the cost of the retractable roof which could only be estimated when the building design was finalised.
This is expected to cost in the region of an extra R300-million.
The anticipated road infrastructure improvements are expected to include the completion of the flyovers on the Foreshore and a proposed new road named Granger Bay Boulevard which would connect traffic from the Green Point circle to the site of the proposed stadium and from there connect to Beach Road.
City head of transport, Medezy Mazaza, said that the the flyover completion and the proposed Granger Bay Boulevard were all part of the city's Transport Impact Assessment.
She said the assessment is currently under way and the draft report should be available for public comment by June. She said that previous estimates to complete the flyovers sat at between R300-million and R500-million.
She added that because it was a national and provincial road, funding would come from all three spheres of government.
The Granger Bay Boulevard is also part of the assessment and Mazaza said that they were currently only working with a conceptual plan.
She added that the plan did not provide specific detail of the road and whether it would include bridges and other features.
The proposed site also needed to be finalised and and an assessment was needed as to how much the road would be used after the World Cup.
The estimated cost based on the conceptual plan stands at around R23-million. "This cost will be shared among the city, the province and the V&A Waterfront," she said.
The official added that the electricity infrastructure along the Atlantic seaboard was unable to support a structure of the stadium's size.
The Cape Argus reported this week that the stadium would require 10 megavoltamps (MVA) power supply, and the existing electricity distribution network is not equipped to supply this.
It added that the electrical work would include an upgrading of the switching stations in Montague Gardens, the Foreshore and Koeberg Road as well as the creation of a new substation within the stadium.
New cables would also have to be laid from Montague Gardens switching station to the Foreshore and to the stadium.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Sunday Argus on April 02, 2006
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