Singapore Sports Hub the Lion City's pride and joy
Singapore's state-of-the-art facilities will be completed by 2014, leaving Hongkongers to watch with envy from the sidelines
English Premiership sides, rugby's HSBC Sevens World Series and cricket's Bollywood-styled Indian Premier League will soon be strutting their stuff at the Singapore Sports Hub, a playground for the world's most famous athletes.
While Hong Kong is still undecided on how to proceed with a sports hub at Kai Tak, it's business as usual in Singapore, which is steaming ahead towards completion of its multibillion dollar project in March 2014.
"That is our scheduled date for completion of the project and we are well on the way to meeting it. We are down the final stretch now," says Mark Collins, managing director of Global Spectrum, the venue operator of the S$1.37 billion (HK$8.68 million) project.
A 35-hectare site at the edge of the Kallang Basin, next to Singapore's bustling city centre, the sports hub will offer elite and recreational sporting and entertainment facilities. World-renowned acts in sports and music are being lined up. And the sky is the limit.
"We have already signed MOU's [memorandum of understanding] with around 20 major events in the run-up to 2015 when Singapore hosts the SEA [Southeast Asia] Games. We are looking at our grand opening ceremony continuing for 15 months until the SEA Games, and we will play host to a number of events with the focus being on football, rugby and cricket," said Collins, whose company is also one of four equity partners along with the Singapore government in this ambitious undertaking.
While Hong Kong was recently caught up in an unwanted debate - prompted by certain quarters in the government - about whether Kai Tak should be used to build a sports hub or public housing, the Lion City continues to steal a march. Its hub is the largest sports infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) project in the world. Under the PPP arrangement, the government will pay the consortium an annual fee (covering construction, operating and financing costs) over 25 years.