Venue plans are in place for Brisbane 2032 and now the wait for construction begins

The entrance to Victoria Park, where a new 60,000-seat stadium will be built for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane

Ready. Set. Wait. It’ll be another year or two before construction begins on the main Olympic stadium for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.

And this is racing mode.

It’s taken almost four years since the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2032 Summer Games to Brisbane to finalize a cohesive venue plan, and now the countdown is serious for the 7.1 billion Australian dollars (US$4.4 billion) construction program.

Stephen Conry, chairman of the Brisbane 2032 independent infrastructure coordination authority, yesterday said “the likely date or year for shovels in the ground for the (main) stadium would be 2026, ‘27” after the design and approvals phase.

“There’s a lot of work to be done when you start spending billions of dollars on infrastructure,” added Conry, who led a 100-day review of venue options and reported back this month to the state government. “We have over seven years, plenty of time to build a stadium. We’ll have it ready in 2031.”

Conry joined Andrew Liveris, president of the Brisbane 2032 organizing committee, in pitching the Olympic construction and legacy plan to the Infrastructure Association of Queensland yesterday, a day after state Premier David Crisafulli unveiled the latest concepts.

A 60,000-seat stadium built in inner-city parkland, a sailing venue on the Whitsunday islands near the Great Barrier Reef and a crocodile-inhabited rowing venue i n central Queensland are part of the program that Crisafulli launched with a theme that seemed universal among politicians and citizens: just get on with it.

The original bid idea floated by then-Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to renovate a 130-year-old cricket stadium known as the Gabba to become the 2032 centerpiece was scrapped by her successor Steven Miles a year ago. Miles lost government late last year to Crisafulli, who has broken an election promise of no new stadiums.

Rather than shrink the scale, his government expanded it to cities and sites up and down the Queensland coast, factoring in tourism potential. Some of them — the rowing for instance — may ultimately be rejected by international sports federations. But it’s on the drawing board. The state government also aims to bring in private-sector funding for an indoor arena that will be outside the Olympic scope but could possibly become a venue for events in 2032.

There’s also the inclusion of a 25,000-seat aquatic center that will become home to a national academy in the Victoria Park precinct.

“We are a gold medal factory,” Liveris said of Australia’s national swimming program. “For goodness sake, let’s give our swimmers a chance to make us proud on the world stage as they did in Paris and same with our Paralympians.”

Critics have said the new main stadium will decrease green space and add to traffic congestion, and have questioned the budget for a stadium at Victoria Park that was initially proposed in 2023 at a cost of A$3.4 billion ($2.15 billion) but has already risen to almost A$3.8 billion ($2.4 billion).

The Queensland and Australian governments are funding and building the stadiums and the Brisbane Olympic organizing committee is responsible for delivering the Games.

“Yesterday we got the stage. Finally, we have a plan,” Liveris said. “I have confidence that our team can deliver the event, and we have the time to do it. We have been preparing — I know there’s a narrative out there (of) three wasted years — but we’ve been putting all the planning in place.”

Domestic media polls showed the public supported the Games “overwhelmingly,” Liveris said.

“Even the worst critics have come to the the table and said ‘let’s get on with it,’” he said. “This is a palpable sense of opportunity. This is a gift.”JOHN PYE, BRISBANE, MDT/AP