WORKS to redevelop St Kilda Football Club’s abandoned Seaford training ground are going over budget.
St Kilda FC signed a peppercorn rent 50 year lease with Frankston Council in 2009 to use Belvedere Reserve as its home base. By 2018 the club had moved its training back to Moorabbin.
Council is currently in the process of renegotiating its lease with St Kilda FC. The new lease term will be for seven years, with two further seven year terms if certain conditions are met. The football club plans to use the site as a “healthy future hub”, which would host tenants like Belvedere Community Centre (“New lease for Saints at Seaford” The Times 12/10/21).
To date council has budgeted $3.23 million of ratepayer funding towards the refit, with an additional $750,000 set aside to build modular change rooms. The change rooms are dependent on St Kilda FC lobbying other levels of government for more funding. The project is now projected to cost $5.46 million, a whopping $2.23 million over budget.
Rising construction costs have been blamed for the blowout. A report prepared by council read that it was “experiencing significant cost escalation on a number of building, civil and open space projects with project costs varying from 30 per cent to 40 per cent subject to overall scope of works and materials involved”.
Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy said the cost increase was due to “supply chain issues and broader economic conditions that are impacting the entire building industry locally and further abroad.”
“Council is actively managing project costs to ensure this exciting project is delivered so future generations of Frankston City residents have access to high quality community health and wellbeing facilities,” he said. “This project is a wonderful investment in our community and provides a much-needed facility for the health and wellbeing of our ratepayers, to be used for generations to come. Council has established a strong partnership with the St Kilda Football Club and will transform this facility into a thriving community hub.
“This project has been fully designed, has the support of the community and is ready to move to construction.”
Councillors agreed to put in extra funding at their most recent public meeting. The motion to approve the spending passed 7-2. Councillors Steven and Liam Hughes opposed the move.
Steven Hughes said he was concerned about handing more control over to St Kilda Football Club after it had left the site. “I don’t think St Kilda Football Club has done due diligence in looking after the facility which was partly paid for by Frankston Council. They left it almost empty, so I don’t think that St Kilda Football Club now should have the right to manage community groups that will be in that facility,” he said. “This is asking for an additional $2.2 million. I don’t believe it’s in the best interest of the Frankston ratepayers who are here tonight to be spending money on something an external organisation will benefit from. I think it should be 100 per cent managed by Frankston ratepayers – we are putting in the money and we should have the right to manage that facility for ourselves.”
Cr Brad Hill warned that if the project did not proceed it could end up costing more to rehome Belvedere Community Centre. “The alternative if we don’t do this is we walk away, St Kilda walks away, and the building is left empty. Those community groups won’t have a home, and we have to spend a few million dollars on the Belvedere Community Centre to renovate it,” he said.
Another councillor worried that the alternative to completing the project was a costly legal process. Cr Kris Bolam said “we have a choice of activating [the site] or we can go through the Supreme Court, potentially over the next four to five years, and litigate the matter. (…) Let’s get it done, I want to see it activated.”
The new lease in discussion would see St Kilda FC relinquish its use of the car park and oval. The proposed lease will cost the club $10,000 in rent during the first year, $15,000 in the second year, and $20,000 in the third year.
