| By Leonard Lim | ||
 |  | Singapore hopes to use the Games to showcase the new Sports Hub, the centrepiece of which will be a 55,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof as seen in this artist's impression. But the $1.87 billion project is beset by financial woes. -- PHOTO: SINGAPORE SPORTS HUB CONSORTIUM |
DELAYS continue to dog the Sports Hub, with the earliest completion date for the troubled $1.87 billion project at Kallang now understood to be 2013.
Some senior sports officials have privately raised the possibility that Singapore may have to forgo hosting that year's SEA Games if there are further delays.
Should that happen, it would be a major blow to the Republic, which had hoped to use the biennial multi-sport extravaganza to showcase the world-class facility - the centrepiece of which will be a 55,000-seater dome-shaped National Stadium with a retractable roof.
The Singapore Sports Hub Consortium (SSHC) hopes to sign the final contract with the Singapore Sports Council by year-end, said Mr Ludwig Reichhold, managing director of construction firm Dragages Singapore, on Thursday.
Dragages is the lead agency of the consortium that trumped bids from two other groups in January last year.
The contract was to have been inked in March last year but was delayed by financial and legal nitty-gritty.
The SSHC hopes to pull down the National Stadium by the first quarter of next year. The demolition will take about three months.
Construction of the hub can then begin and will take about three years to finish.
But a source said: 'Even with this timeline, a completion date of mid-2013 is still touch and go.'
Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment