Breaking down the old: Building the new

Speech made by mayor Obed Mlaba at demolition of last stand to make way for the building of the King Senzangakhona stadium

25 july 2006

We are today gathering to put to bed the old and lay the foundations for building the new.

I am not only truly excited that we will be building a winning stadium, but it will be a stadium using taxpayers money that is well spent.  I pride myself on the fact that we have always ensured that all our capital projects are economically sustainable and financially viable and the new King Senzangakhona stadium will be no exception. Let me reflect on some silly comments I have heard about white elephants.

History teaches us a good lesson in the parable of the white elephant.   The legend derives from east Asia, where the Burmese believe that white elephants are sacred, cant be used for work and must be lavished with care.   Feeding and keeping an elephant is no small business, so the King of Siam, used to give white elephants to his enemies, who could not put them to work, but instead had to plough enormous amounts of money into keeping and feeding them.  Within a short period of time the recipient of the white elephant would be financially ruined.

It is with this lesson in mind that the design of the new King Senzangakhona stadium has been undertaken.  No trick has been missed in ensuring that the stadium is a truly multifunctional, hard working and easy to maintain asset to the city.   The stadium will have a significant number of suites and corporate entertainment spaces which bring in significant amounts of income and are the lifeblood of any stadium.  It will have numerous concession and retail spaces from which food, drink and sporting goods can be sold.   The pitch will be large enough to accommodate football, rugby as well as athletics and would be suitable to host a commonwealth games and with minor modifications an Olympics.  It will be able to accommodate music concerts, large political or religious gatherings, motorcross and other sports.  In short, this is no white elephant that we are building the city.  This will be an extremely hard working, durable, robust asset to the city.
Today is the final part of the demolition of the stadium, in order to make way for the new King Senzangakhona multipurpose stadium.  Yet, in this process of destruction, nothing has gone to waste.  Almost every part of the old stadium will be re-used in either the new stadium or in other sporting facilities throughout the eThekwini Metro in a process which sets the standard for recycling old buildings.
The city has sought to maximize the sustainability of the process and mimimise ongoing costs to the city by recycling every part of the old stadium.  Some items, such as the grass, topsoil, floodlighting, masts, control gear and precast seating will be re-used at other stadiums in less resourced parts of the metro in the spirit of building sports throughout the city.
To date, two other demolitions have taken place at the stadium: on the 8th of June the south Pavilion was demolished, using 60Kg of explosives.  Similarly, the north Pavilion was demolished on the 12th of June using 80 Kg of explosives.  The main stand is the only remaining stand in the (80 day) demolition contract that is running well ahead of schedule and is estimated to be completed a month ahead of time on the 18th of October.
All concrete from the demolished stands is being crushed on site, using mobile primary and secondary crushers established on site, and will be used as fill for the base of the new King Senzangakhona stadium.   Over 400 tons of steel, 4000m3 of topsoil and 40 000 bricks have been recovered during this process, which will be recycled.  The value of recovered materials is estimated to be in the region of R950 000, and the value of precast seats approximately R1million. 
Just under 100 people employed and 30 of these are women.  The city has adopted a labour intensive approach to the demolition in order to maximize job opportunities for our people.
We value your support here today on this historic occasion, lets move into the future together as we celebrate the development of our new King Senzangakhona Stadium

Dr Michael Sutcliffe
City Manager: eTheKwini

City Manager's Newsletter: Editorial 2010: Demolition of old stadium
26 July, 2006