The redevelopment of the Sydney Football Stadium has been full of controversy with a massive public backlash to the development.

The development has been subject to a lot of public debate with questions as to why the NSW Government are demolishing a functioning stadium instead of upgrading the stadium at a fraction of the cost.

The approval process for the stadium was also met with backlash as the NSW Government conducted the planning assessment and approved the development as state significant development without sufficient public consultation. City of Sydney Council and Randwick Council were bypassed in the approval process despite the stadium impacting both of these Council areas.

State Significant Development is an alternative pathway for development to be approved by the State Government bypassing Council. The assessment process enables the assessment of significant projects at the State level, rather than at the local Council level ensuring that broader state significant issues are taken into account when determining the merit of the proposal rather than focusing on local issues.

Despite the backlash the stadium was demolished by Lendlease and the NSW Government is now looking for a new company to rebuild Allianz Stadium (SFS) after Lendlease walked away from the project. Multiplex and John Holland have been identified as potential candidates.

Lendlease, which has demolished the arena formerly known as Allianz Stadium, had also been locked in since December as the new stadium’s constructor after beating rival builder Multiplex to the contract.

It’s now understood Lendlease only signed a contract for stage one of the development, with the developer being told by the government that it needed to “cut costs” for its stage two proposal. 

The total budget for knocking down and rebuilding Allianz Stadium at Moore Park is $729 million.

Lendlease did bid for stage two of the contract, the construction phase, as the government wanted the company to do the work for less than it thought feasible.

The NSW sports minister, John Sidoti, said Lendlease’s stage two offer “did not meet the government’s expectations so we are looking for another builder in a competitive market”.

Sidoti is still promising the Sydney Football Stadium can be built on time and on budget, after inviting Multiplex and John Holland to participate in the competitive tender process to deliver stage two of the project.

“The two shortlisted parties have a wealth of experience in delivering high quality infrastructure projects,” Sidoti said.

“We know that if we want to continue attracting global events we need our stadiums to be the best in the world but the NSW public expects us to negotiate the best price.” 

The winning bidder will be announced later this year, following the receipt of stage two planning approval and completion of the tender evaluation.

Gladys Berejiklian’s government is now on the back foot with the premier saying the government had “until November” to secure another company to build the stadium, which is scheduled to be completed by 2022.

“A government needs to get the best price and the best product to make sure that we do the best thing for our citizens and if it means going through processes, then so be it.” 

Once complete, the new SFS will be the biggest rectangular stadium in the country and the NSW Government hopes to use the stadium as a multi purpose stadium that will allow for a broad range of uses including international music performances.