Port Adelaide Chief Executive Officer Matthew Richardson has outlined the club’s vision for Alberton Square, a landmark mixed-use development concept set to strengthen the club’s long-term financial position while enhancing its historic home at Alberton. 

Speaking to the media following the announcement, Richardson detailed the strategic thinking behind the project, the funding model, the opportunity the unique location presents for developers, and the next steps in planning and community consultation.  

In a wide-ranging press conference, he also explained how the development will diversify the club’s revenue streams, create a long-term appreciating asset for the future, and deliver new community, commercial, health and residential opportunities integrated with the existing high-performance precinct. 

With the land now consolidated and a planning phase set to begin, Richardson said Alberton Square represents another important moment for the club, and will secure Port Adelaide’s future at Alberton while continuing to invest in the local community. 

Richardson on the vision of Alberton Square 

We're delighted today to announce the Alberton Square development project. It’s a really exciting future development project for the Port Adelaide Football Club that has very real potential to transform the financial future of the club long term. As you would have seen, the transformation around Alberton Oval and our high-performance facilities has been progressing over the last five years. We're currently redeveloping our AFLW changerooms to the northern end of the Alan Scott Headquarters facility, in addition to the eastern stands, and the bowling club will follow that. 

About four or five years ago, our board developed a strategy, with our priority being to repay historical debt. We've now been able to do that, so the next stage was about how we invest beyond debt reduction and start to diversify the business model of the club. Traditionally, sporting clubs' revenues are reliant on the ups and downs of what happens on the field. Our board looked around the world, and the successful, innovative sports clubs and franchises had all diversified their business models, and the one common theme was they'd used real estate to do that. 

The fortunate thing for the club was we had a parcel of land directly opposite the Port Club that the club had owned for 20 or 30 years. So, the idea was, if over time we could acquire real estate between Alberton Oval and Port Road, could we integrate that precinct with the oval and create a fully integrated mixed-use precinct? And that's really the vision. Today's announcement is that we have been able to acquire that land, which now allows us to move into the next stage, which is a planning and consultation phase. 

It’s an exciting project for the club, and an exciting project for the community. As you would have seen here at Alberton Oval, the way that we've developed the precinct, it's been part of the community for over 150 years, and an important part of the community. 

We've got junior basketball here at night, junior soccer during the week, and then the community really gets to use the space. The vision with this precinct is that there are also lots of active spaces and plaza areas. It just continues that theme around providing great facilities for the community. 

Richardson on how the club has funded, and will continue to fund the Alberton Square project 

So far, the cost has been around $20 million in order to acquire the property. One of the fortunate things was that the club already owned the carpark land (opposite the Port Club). So, the cost of that was clearly zero. We've been working with the AFL as a partner on the project. The AFL is working with clubs on projects like this, where the industry is starting to look at how to diversify the revenue streams. We don't want to be just reliant on broadcast revenue or the traditional revenue of sport. We're working with the AFL as a funding partner, and importantly, it's an investment for them, so it's loan funds. And the other thing that we did was set up a property trust. That trust is made up of 20 really passionate Port Adelaide people who believe in and want to support the vision to create a legacy for Port Adelaide, and that's how we've been able to fund the project. 

We will go into a planning phase now that we've been able to consolidate the land, and that phase will include ways to actually fund the project. I would imagine that it includes finding development partners who are going to work with us on how we deliver the project, but also how we fund the project. 

This is a commercial project. What we're trying to do is build a business model so we're self-sufficient. We think that there's going to be great benefit to the development of Alberton Square for the community, with some of those features that I've talked about before. Ultimately, that is what the Port Adelaide Football Club is about. We've been part of this community for 156 years, and our plan is to continue to evolve and improve this precinct. It’s going to increase in size significantly, and the uses of the precinct will change. But if you think about what's happening in Port Adelaide, the region, with the development down at Osborne, I heard the mayor (Claire Boan) talking this morning about how vibrant some of the changes happening in Port Adelaide is. We're very entrenched in this community. It's part of who we are, and we're really excited about what the future of not only Alberton and Alberton Square looks like, but Port Adelaide as a region for South Australia. 

Richardson on the unique location of the land 

It’s a significant piece of land. It's connected to a high-performance sports precinct, which is unique, and it's on a major transport corridor. It’s also in a strategic location in the state, with the AUKUS redevelopment only five kilometers down the road, so the opportunities on the site are unique and significant, and we look forward to working and identifying the right partners to work with us to maximize the outcomes, not only for the football club, but also, really importantly, for the local community and creating a really vibrant space to live, work and play. 

What we could have done is identify a property development anywhere, if this was purely about building a revenue stream. But we were very strong on the fact that we wanted to enhance Alberton Oval as a precinct for the Port Adelaide Football Club and the community. So, what we're creating here is very unique. We got the inspiration around the world of fully integrated high-performance sport and community precincts that are connected. What we're doing here is creating a campus that I think is around seven and a half hectares in size, which will have high performance sport, community sport, wellness, health, and a mixed-use residential precinct — it's a very unique proposition (for a developer). It has a major transport corridor frontage and is within five kilometers of one of the biggest industrial developments in Australia's history, down at Osborne. So strategically, it's in a significant location, and uniquely, it's connected to a high-performance sports precinct, and there are only 18 AFL clubs, so we're confident that there's going to be one (a developer interested). We're going to create something here that’s very special, and that entrenches the Port Adelaide Football Club at Alberton for the next 150 years, but also, importantly, enhances Alberton. 

Richardson on the project's timelines 

We're still very early in the process, and we’re about to proceed with the next step, which is a planning phase, and that will involve lodging a code amendment to rezone the land. That process will take 12 to 18 months. We'll spend that time identifying the right partners to maximize what's possible on the site. 

Richardson on the revenue Alberton Square could generate for the club 

It obviously depends on how Alberton Square is developed. The initial modeling indicates that in five years’ time it could generate a rental return of between $5 million and $8 million, which is clearly significant. Obviously, there'll need to be a fair bit of work done to flesh that out, but it creates a significant revenue stream. Importantly, it also creates an asset that will grow and appreciate in value. 

That was one of the other things that our board identified. We all develop great high-performance centres like the magnificent MG High Performance Center we're in today. The reality, though, with these assets is they don't generate revenue, and in 15 years’ time we're probably going to knock it down and build it again, so they depreciate in value. Whereas one of the features we identified by looking around the world was those clubs that have been able to diversify their revenue, and their asset bases develop assets that go up in value over time. This will create a really valuable asset for the club long term, which will underpin the financial future for Port Adelaide. 

Richardson on what impact the 20 private investors have had on the football club 

It's incredible. These are people that we've probably been going to for many years to help us with various capital projects or various donations. They're just passionate people who don't want anything, don't want any notoriety themselves, but the legacy that they're going to help create is going to be significant. It's not going to be about the people that are at the club in five or even 10 years, but in 20 or 30 years, when you think about what Alberton Square could become, it's an incredible legacy. To all those people, without their support, we wouldn't be in the position that we are in today. 

Richardson on the residential make up of Alberton Square 

It's hard to say at this point in time. I think the opportunity is mixed use. There's commercial use, there's community use, and there's an opportunity for housing. The mix of housing could range from affordable housing and supported living. There's a whole range of opportunities that we could look at, but that'll be part of the next planning process over 12 to 24 months. 

The really important thing from the football club’s perspective is that we've been able to consolidate that land, and in some cases buy back houses that the club used to own 20 years ago. We’ve created a site that is going to be valuable in time for the Port Adelaide Football Club but also enhance the facilities that we're developing here at Alberton Oval. 

Richardson on engaging the local community in the planning process 

We’ve kept the councils, the City of Port Adelaide Enfield and Charles Sturt, engaged as we started to develop the vision. That process has been going for probably 18 months, and we're now about to go into that consultation phase. We've got a member information night for our own members on Monday 16 March, and then a community consultation meeting on Monday 23 March. We look forward to being able to share the broader vision with both of those really important stakeholder groups. 

There are legislative requirements around informing tenants of the need to relocate, and we will, of course, adhere to them. The reality is nothing's going to happen there for at least 18 months to two years. They’ll have plenty of notice. 

Richardson on the rebuild of Port Adelaide 

There's a lot of people that deserve a lot of credit and who have put in a lot of really hard work to create this opportunity for the Port Adelaide Football Club, and most importantly, a big part of that is our members and our community. If you go back to where the club was in the late 2000s to 2012, Port Adelaide was in a pretty fragile position. 

We put Port Adelaide back together as one club, we've driven AFL footy to Adelaide Oval, we've taken AFL football to China. All the boards and the people who have been involved in that have played a really important role in rebuilding the Port Adelaide Football Club. Sometimes I use a line that it has taken us 20 years to rebuild the real Port Adelaide — and here’s another example of that. 

When you consider the club moved into the AFL and the forced separation into two separate entities (SANFL and AFL), the impact that it had on the club was a lot bigger than I think a lot of people realize. Again, here's an example where the houses were assets that the club used to underpin its AFL license, that were split and divided when the club went into the competition. 

Then we navigated COVID. The one group of people who have stuck with us all the way through that has been our members. In that first year of COVID in 2020, over 50,000 of them stayed with the club when there was a threat that there was going to be no footy at all. If it wasn't for our members, we wouldn't be in the position that we're in today. Coming out of COVID, we've been able to repay that historical debt, which was an important goal. 

All that does is give us the opportunity to now create something that is a real financial legacy. But importantly, the only way that becomes a reality for us is if our core business — football — continues to perform, and that absolutely is our focus. One of the really important things about this project is that, while its wholly owned by the club, there is a separate group of people running the project so that our focus day to day remains, as it should, on winning footy and making sure that we've got members who are highly engaged and partners who are on the journey with us. 

Richardson on the potential of Alberton Oval 

The AFLW changing rooms will be finished in June, and the eastern stands will be finished in April. The next project is the bowling club redevelopment, which, really importantly, will still include a bowling club as part of this community precinct. The bowling club has been here for 100 years, and what we're doing with the Alberton Square development is making sure that they're going to be here for another 100 years. 

We've got a bit of funding to chase on that one, and like we've done with all of the projects so far, we haven't commenced any projects until we're fully funded. 

In April, the capacity will be about 6,500, which will be perfect for AFLW. The new grandstand on the western side will take that to about 10,000. As you can see around the eastern side, it wouldn't be too hard for us to bring in temporary stands, like those used for the MotoGP, and get capacity up to around 20,000 to 25,000 at Alberton — which could be a pretty attractive proposition for Gather Round in the future.