It's pretty obvious that it is...it's still a trade off between higher land cost but economic flow back to CBD business......compared to a stadium out in the sticks supported by nothing.

For 12 events per year. Maybe 18 with supercross etc? How much do these fans spend in bars in the city?

You recognise the land If the land cost is double, the multiplier return needs to be a helluva lot higher for a city stadium. Add in the opportunity cost of not doing something more productive with the site too.

It's the whole picture, people now want to live near stadiums and become part of the communal atmosphere of the city.

There are a lot of reports on the Adelaide Oval redevelopment that shows how much more the economy will be stimulated than what a similar crowd at West Lakes is currently achieving...

Compare the benefits another way:

Over the life of both stadia, consider [cost of land aquisition] + [cost of development] - [direct return (tickets, catering, pourage etc.)] - [indirect return (restaurants, bars etc.)]

It's not going to be as simple as "we get more direct and indirect return" if we also have more expensive aquisition and development. I'd bet a fiddy that it costs less to do construction at Penrith than Moore Park, and that on top of the cheaper land costs in the beginning means that you might wind up with a more viable stadium over the long term at the 'ruff than the SFS.

Tricksy little factors apply as well - people *can* drive to outer suburban stadiums, and really can't to city grounds. If crowds are smaller, the ground can be smaller -> less maintenance cost. Noise and traffic issues might be less, so you might get away with more events, and more events = more paydays.

It depends on whether its part of a strategy to increase the size and growth of the CBD rather than continuing urban sprawl. Crowd attendance inadvertently increases due to the other facilities around the stadium, the denser population.

We are talking about inner city Townsville on (Government land?), using some of the unusued railway land.

I am far from being a capital city only stadium fan (eg my support of Thomsons Lake as the best site for a stadium in Perth, particularly due to the costs of Perth CBD sites and the fact you had a greenfields site with all the infrastructure benefits of an inner city venue. ).

But I can see why its in the Government's interest in Queensland.

I forgot to mention opportunity cost. You can't build a bunch of high rises and high-value commercial property on the fringes but you can in the burbs. The high rise and commercial property itself generates a lot of income that should be counted alongside any multiplier effects of the burb dome. The alternative - a shopping centre or housing estate in the burbs alongside a city stadium may get nowhere near the multipliers.

All this said - I much prefer going to city grounds. Getting out to bumfuck to go to a game annoys me, but I'm just trying to make the point that 'economics' can be harnessed to 'prove' all sorts of things.

So the opportunity cost of what it is being used at present is much better than plonking a stadium there?

As I said the reports for Adelaide Oval compared the stimulus to the economy as significantly higher for the inner city site, compared to West Lakes.

Egan is generally right, although the economics of a big city (even Adelaide) may not necessarily apply to Townsville. Firstly they have to get the bums on seats. For big cities, the CBD location provides a lot of the transport options. In Townsville it won't, just as many people will drive their cars to the venue as they do to the current one. And it's likely parking will be substantially more difficult. How many people work in the Townsville CBD? A few thousand? So in terms of access, it's possible that an inner city venue might actually be less accessible. Which is something that isn't the case for Adelaide Oval (or any other major city CBD stadium), where the CBD is used to handling large crowds of people every day.

The 2nd issue is the number of restaurants & bars that are around. I've got no idea about the area in question, but being a much smaller city that isn't the tourism hub that Cairns is, i'd be surprised if it had that many in the area. Maybe someone can elaborate. But the number of events held at the venue probably won't be enough to warrant stadium specific venues opening up, i.e a bar opening just because the stadium is there.

It's north Queensland....all you need is bundy rum and xxxx......and you have a viable pub.