The architect who helped design the MCG’s Shane Warne Stand has urged the Melbourne Cricket Club to reconsider plans to demolish and replace the venerated grandstand, given the mooted upgrades – estimated to cost $200,000 per additional seat – don’t “pass the pub test”.
The towering structure formerly known as the Great Southern Stand, which won a prominent design award as recently as 2020 and is younger than Collingwood midfielder Steele Sidebottom, was completed in 1992 on the narrow envelope between the hallowed MCG turf and Brunton Avenue, adjacent to the train tracks south of the stadium. It was renamed in honour of Warne after the leg-spinner’s death in 2022.
MCC president, Fred Oldfield, told members at his organisation’s AGM last year the 45,000-seat stand, which received a $55m refurbishment in 2012, will need a “complete rebuild” at some stage, and the chief executive, Stuart Fox, has described it as a “priority”.
The MCC operates the ground on behalf of the Victorian government-appointed MCG Trust, the organisation chaired by former Victorian premier Steve Bracks with former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire on its board. The state government provided $2m for a “pre-feasibility” study in 2022 for the renovations.
Ahead of the MCC’s August AGM, where the matter is expected to be raised, recently retired Peter Cole, the project architect for the Great Southern Stand during his five decades at Jackson Architecture, said replacing the imposing structure shouldn’t be considered for another decade at least.
“I don’t know what an improvement would look like, because you can only do so much with the seats, you can make them wider and more padded, which is what we did in the Northern Stand when we rebuilt that, and you can make these incremental improvements, but it’s not radical, it’s just slightly better,” he said.
“After all, the most important function of the stand is to provide the maximum number of seats with excellent site lines as close to the action as possible. The larger you make each individual seat, inevitably more are further away.”
The Southern Stand’s lead architect, Daryl Jackson, Cole’s longtime colleague, was unavailable to comment. One of Jackson’s last public appearances was a speech accepting the Enduring Architecture Award for the building at the 2020 Victorian Architecture Awards, almost 30 years after it had won the Victorian Architecture Medal.
“Daryl would be mortified if the Southern Stand was pulled down,” Cole said. “It has become such a familiar part of the MCG, with its recognisable roof structure and robust concrete ramps and stairs that were carefully designed to slope inwards to appear as buttresses.”
The MCC has said renovations would include better amenities and additional seats for members and an increase in capacity to 105,000 has been publicly discussed, however Cole said that makes little sense.
“As it is relatively rare for the MCG to reach full capacity, such a marginal increase is hard to justify when you consider the huge cost and disruption that demolition and rebuild of the Southern Stand would mean,” Cole said. “It works out at roughly $200,000 per extra seat, given a probable bill of about a billion dollars. It doesn’t pass the pub test.”
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Although the Victorian government has been supportive of the project in the past, its weakening budget position has made it less likely to be able to financially support a costly rebuild in the short to medium term.
However, the MCC is in a strong financial position, with more than 100,000 fee-paying members helping deliver $188m in revenue in the year to 31 March 2024, and a profit of $32m. MCC officials have discussed funding a large proportion of any renovation using internal revenues and a loan.
Fox told members at last year’s AGM the club “has made great inroads in paying off debt, which enables the club to invest into the future,. Discussions are ongoing with the Victorian government for assistance, but the [Shane Warne] Stand will remain a priority.”
Cole urged those involved to consider retaining at least some of the existing structure. “Part of my problem with it is that a premature demolition would be such a waste of embodied energy at a time when we are trying to limit our carbon emissions.”
Accessibility requirements have progressed in the 35 years since the stand was designed. Cole acknowledged there are legitimate concerns relating to the lack of disabled access to the stand’s upper deck, but he noted this could be remedied by retrofitting platforms that would provide wheelchair access from the upper deck concourse.
A new structure is likely to face the same design constraints given the Great Southern Stand, unlike the Northern Stand, had to be planned within a very narrow curved site. Cole said this was due to the government’s insistence on retaining a historic title boundary that prevented intrusion into Yarra Park, as well as the constriction of Brunton Avenue.
