Cape Town Stadum, the white elephant we can't afford

What should be done about the Cape Town Stadium regularly comes up.  Like zombies, it never dies.  It should have its own episode in Fear the Walking Dead: SA.

Plot pitch: There is a zombie apocalypse.  Survivors make their way to a rumoured refuge in Cape Town.  The stadium has been turned into a fortified haven, with all remaining comforts, for politicians and their brethren only, run by a dictator-like leader, the nefarious Premier.  (Acknowledgements to AMC and Lee Herrmann.)

However, in the here and now, to its credit the city is trying to find a way for the World Cup zombie to defray some of its life costs.  One of the reasons it's taking so long is their refusal to recognise the stadium will never be fully utilised and self-sustaining: it doesn't attract regular events, even at subsidised rates, to justify its existence.

From the vague plans in the proposed business plan, the city intends selling, or leasing, valuable land in the Waterfront precinct solely to subsidise, in perpetuity, the stadium's present R40 million annual operations costs.  So it wants to sell our family jewels at fire sale prices to pay for a super-luxury item we don't need or can afford?  

Finance 101 says it’s stupid to waste money on depreciating or non-returning assets.  The fact the city and its consultants investigated only this option, compared to the others available, shows they are either inept or reckless with someone else’s money – our money - or both.

The stadium cannot attract an operator, anchor tenant and regular fixtures for the very good reason that it’s too costly and not essential: a world class facility in a comparatively poor country with poor local spectator support for football.  Don’t they get it?

I’ve asked mayco member for events, Garreth Bloor, for the stadium’s figures.  But until then, I’ve viewed the stadium’s events calendar online and for 2015 see 18 event days, give or take, out of 365 – 5% usage.  Assuming the stadium is recouping a similar percentage of its operating costs, if it were any other entity – public or private – it would long ago have shut down. 

In 2006 the city's economic impact assessment gave them the facts, but the oh-so-smart then mayor Helen Zille, now premier, said the financial model was sound.  I get they were under pressure from the corrupt and unlamented Sepp Blatter, but why lie to themselves and us about its viability? Why ignore expert and commonsense advice about what to do with it?

As has been discussed before, there are alternatives that exclude the questionable and financially stupid business plan option.  The first, finding an anchor tenant – Western Province Rugby – and increasing its on-structure usage has already failed (18 events a year!).  The second is to reduce maintenance and operations cost to the minimum through efficiencies and by closing sections like many public facilities do, for example, hospitals, military bases, etc. 

The third, which the city rejected a priori - after all they are all-knowing  - is to strip the structure except to accommodate basic usage (see alternative two) – in effect, mothballing it – or strip it to its concrete and steel shell.  The venue could still be used – sets for apocalyptic movies (e.g. Mad Max, Oblivion, The 100, my Walking Dead pitch), and the field and concrete tiers for events like the old Green Point Stadium was.

What prevents councillors from looking at these reasonable alternatives is acknowledging it’s their hubris that landed us in the financial mess a decade ago, and for now insisting that because Cape Town is a “world class” city it must have a world class arena, although we neither need nor can afford it.

Please mayor and councillors, don't go down the road of financial and ethical irresponsibility like the arms deal and future nuclear deal.