Newsroom has learned the latest plan for a waterfront stadium involves this consortium building a stadium partly sunken into reclaimed land at the Bledisloe Wharf. It has been put to a range of public agencies and officials on condition they sign non-disclosure agreements.

This proposal is different from a publicly-released drawing of a partly-submerged stadium put forward by an Auckland designer and marketer Phil O'Reilly in April.

The land-based Bledisloe stadium is likely to cost many hundreds of millions, with the latest assessment of a downtown stadium by consultants PwC in May putting the price of a waterfront arena at $1.5 billion.

Funding would be from local businesses and investors, not ratepayers or taxpayers, getting past a key sticking point for the Auckland Council and Government in past proposals. . . . continue the read >