Sports Hub wins 9 international awards

Sports Hub wins 9 international awards

It may be another three years before the Sports Hub is ready, but it has already won nine international financial awards.

They recognise the ground-breaking financial structure for the S$1.33 billion project, involving Private-Public Partnership (PPP) - a world first for a sports infrastructure.

One of the awards was the prestigious Global Deal of the Year - a rousing start for the project.

The other awards included Asia Pacific PPP Deal of the Year, Best Project Financing and Asian PPP Transaction of the Year. These were awarded by international financial industry organisations and publications.

The large number of accolades was a surprise and is set to raise the bar for those behind the mega project.

Philippe Delavaud, CEO, SportsHub Pte Ltd, said: "Now we have to get awards for the quality of the architecture, we have to get awards for the quality of dealing with the customers, customer care and customer welcome, also to get awards for the sports."

Such recognition will also help in attracting business partners and sponsors.

Goh Fang Min, CFO, Singapore Sports Council, said: "The way it's being designed and where you locate all the various activities - in this case, whether you are a spectator, or you are a shopper or an event organiser, or whether you are athletes or going there just for recreational purpose - we want to make sure that the various spectrum of people will have a delightful experience."

The project is also being closely watched by regional players, who may want to emulate the model if it proves successful.

Mark Rathbone, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Services, said: "Within the sporting market, Singapore is being seen as a market leader. So you have a number of territories around the world that are contacting Singapore to go and help them develop their stadiums and their procurement programmes for sports."

Besides a 55,000 seat retractable roof stadium, the Sports Hub also features a multi-purpose indoor arena, state-of-the-art Aquatics Centre and retail space.

Over the past two months, piling works have been carried out for the Sports Hub and before the end of the year, work will start on the main structure. The project is still expected to be completed by April 2014.

-News courtesy of Channel Newsasia-