Rabbitohs to leave Redfern for new Maroubra headquarters
The South Sydney Rabbitohs will relocate their training and administrative headquarters from Redfern to a new $58 million facility at Maroubra.
To be known as The Heffron Centre, construction of the new facility will commence in August and is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.
Located at Heffron Park, the new Rabbitohs headquarters are situated about 6.5km from Redfern Oval, the club’s home ground between 1948 and 1987.
The NRL club has committed to playing home games at Stadium Australia until 2022, when the new Sydney Football Stadium is scheduled to open, however no announcement has been made regarding their future home ground.
As well as being the new home of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, the state-of-the-art facility will also include publicly accessible areas such as a cafe, hall of fame, merchandise shop and fan area to view training on an NRL-standard showcase field.
Souths will relocate their headquarters as well as the club’s Souths Cares community and charity arm to the new venue. It’ll also feature a lecture theatre, function rooms and a community indoor sports centre and gymnastics centre.
“The Heffron Centre will allow us to move our NRL, Women’s and NSW Cup teams and administrative, commercial and Souths Cares staff members to one site – with the rest of our representative pathways programs using Redfern Oval,” said Rabbitohs CEO Blake Solly.
“Importantly it will also allow us to double the size and reach of our community programs which have already helped achieve over 400 Aboriginal employment placements, helped young people achieve their HSC and helped over 7,600 students with health and well-being messages.”
Randwick Mayor Danny Said stated the release of the detailed graphics is a significant milestone.
“It’s been a lot of hard work to get to this point and I’m very pleased that we are on the verge of starting construction on what will be the biggest project ever undertaken by Randwick Council,” Mayor Said commented.
“This facility is funded by Souths and all three levels of Government and has been seven years in planning. It will deliver more than 200 jobs during construction and more than 60 ongoing jobs through the operation of the facility.
Minister for Sport, Geoff Lee, said the centre would be a world-class, high-performance training, administration and community facility.
“This facility will support the development of promising young and high-performance male and female players in south-east Sydney while the dedicated multi-purpose community facilities will enable the Rabbitohs to expand their community programs, initiatives and engagement,” Mr Lee said.
The community gymnastics facility will be able to operate seven days a week up to 10pm and includes state-of-the-art facilities including a dedicated gymnastics zone showcasing community history, awards and memories.
The indoor sports centre will also operate seven days a week up to 10pm with two multi-purpose sports halls to accommodate sports such as netball, basketball, badminton, volleyball and futsal.
The Heffron Centre will be fully owned by Randwick City Council with lease arrangements in place to the South Sydney Rabbitohs and operators of the indoor sports centre and gymnastics centre.
Randwick City Council is currently seeking tenders for construction of the centre which is anticipated to commence in mid to late 2021.
