City Council passes NT$24.8bn budget for domed stadium

The Taipei City Council early yesterday morning passed a special budget of NT$24.8 billion to build a domed stadium on the site of the old Sungshan tobacco factory (松山菸廠).

The construction of the 45,000-seat stadium is scheduled to begin in September 2004 and to be completed in December 2007.

"[Taipei] Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was delighted by the news that the budget had been passed and that this took care of the money needed for constructing the domed stadium," Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), spokesman of the Taipei City Government, told the Taipei Times last night. "We appreciate the support expressed by the Taipei City Council."

According to Chen Lung-tsai (陳隆材), secretary of Taipei City's Council Affairs Division, the budget was passed with 22 votes for and 18 votes against it.

All DPP city councilors who showed up at the meeting voted against the draft budget, he added.

"They [the DPP city councilors] objected against the budget, saying that the plan requires an enormous sum of money and the decision should therefore have been postponed until the year's end when the newly elected mayor and city councilors could have reviewed the case," Chen told the Taipei Times.

"Incomplete environmental safety and aviation safety reviews were also among the reasons why they objected to the budget."

The domed stadium project was first initiated by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when he was the mayor of Taipei.

Issues surrounding the proposed stadium have become a hot issue recently after the DPP Taipei mayoral candidate, Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), charged that Ma's lack of determination has resulted in the procrastination of the project. Lee proposed to have the domed stadium built in Shihlin, at the Mei-lun Scientific Park.

Listings reasons ranging from the size of the area, the convenience of transportation and commercial benefits, Wu said the factory is a more appropriate site to build the domed stadium on than that suggested by Lee.

"First of all, the land area of the old Sungshan tobacco factory is bigger than that of the Shihlin site proposed by Lee, as it [the Shihlin site] can only accomodate a building with 20,000 seats," Wu said.

He said that, because the Sungshan tobacco factory is situated close to a train station as well as near the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and World Trade Center, the Core Pacific Mall and such like, constructing the stadium there would better facilitate in-coming crowds.

Located off Kuangfu North Road between Chunghsiao East Road and Civil Boulevard, the old Sungshan tobacco site is a strip of land measuring 18.2 hectares.