by Shane Sody
A concept design for a new sports building in Park 27B of your Adelaide Park Lands would be twice as large as the building it’s intended to replace.
The most recent meeting of Kadaltilla / the Adelaide Park Lands Authority on 27 November 2025 considered a ‘concept design’ from the West Adelaide Soccer Club for a proposed new building in Mary Lee Park (Park 27B of your Park Lands).
Site of the existing West Adelaide soccer club building off Park Terrace (opposite Bowden) in Mary Lee Park (Park 27B of your Park Lands). Pic: Kadaltilla / Adelaide Park Lands Authority agenda 27 November 2025
The Club has received funding from both the State Government and the City Council to realise its ambition to construct large new “clubrooms” on Mary Lee Park, where its teams have been playing soccer for decades.
In December 2024 the City Council adopted both:
a new Park Lands Management Strategy (“Towards 2036”); and
a new Community Buildings (Sport & Recreation) policy
the combined effect of which is now to allow multiple sporting clubs and groups to effectively privatise large parts of your Park Lands; and to abandon any Council-imposed size restrictions on new sports buildings.
As we said at the time:
“Memo to City Councillors: Propping up a bar, or taking private function bookings, are NOT sports.
“Unlike public Open Green Public spaces, they are not going to make anybody healthier. Although they might be enjoyable, they are not exercises, and they do not need to come at the expense of public access to your Open Green Public Adelaide Park Lands.”
Nevertheless, both the Strategy and the Policy were adopted. Therefore, the latest “concept plan” from the West Adelaide Soccer Club merely seeks to take up the Council-approved opportunity for the Club to expand its built footprint on Mary Lee Park.
The existing West Adelaide Soccer Club building, off Park Terrace in Mary Lee Park (Park 27B). Pic: Kadaltilla / Adelaide Park Lands Authority agenda 27 November 2025
The Club’s “concept plan” proposes replacing this old, brick shed (footprint of 150m2) with a new, much wider building of some 378m2.
Pic: Kadaltilla / Adelaide Park Lands Authority agenda 27 November 2025
Significantly, the draft plans include what’s described as a “community space”; effectively a large meeting room that might also serve as a function venue.
Pic: Kadaltilla / Adelaide Park Lands Authority agenda 27 November 2025
A draft lease, attached to agenda papers for the Kadaltilla meeting, proposes a lease fee of $4,158 per annum ($80 per week) to be reviewed annually, over the next 21 years.
The lease would require the West Adelaide Soccer club to make both the new building, and the playing fields available to “not-for-profit community groups and organisations when not in use by the lessee” as long as any fees charged were not set at a level to generate a profit.
Kadaltilla / the Park Lands Authority has “noted” the Concept design, while urging the West Adelaide Soccer Club to make slight revisions. It has recommended to the City Council that it should proceed to “community consultation” in 2026, proposing to grant the Club:
a lease of up to 21-years; and
exemption from the usual Park Lands requirement to undertake a competitive Expression of Interest process.
What would the public get?
The proposed lease document requires toilets in the new building to be open not just to the club or its sub-lessees, but open at all hours to the public.
