If the Awatea St stadium does not go ahead, Carisbrook will have to be upgraded, the ground's owner believes.
Carisbrook Stadium Trust chairman Malcolm Farry told a Dunedin City Council finance and strategy committee meeting on Monday of the difficulties involved in redeveloping Carisbrook if the new stadium did not go ahead.
Otago Rugby Football Union chief executive Richard Reid said, when contacted yesterday, the union fully supported the new stadium and wanted it to go ahead.
The union owned Carisbrook, but it was a financial millstone.
"But if the new stadium does not go ahead, something would have to be done to Carisbrook," he said.
"It also becomes a Dunedin issue. We have to get it up to a certain standard," Reid said.
Reid said it was lucky the test against the Springboks last month, with a sell-out crowd of 29,000, had been played on a fine night.
"If you'd had 29,000 in there the week later or the week before, with the weather being so different, there would have been problems.
"Regardless of that, something has to happen with Carisbrook. Whether that costs $20 million or $100 million I don't know."
He said there had been no investigations into upgrades, because at this stage the new stadium was going ahead.
Reid said if any stadium was to be redeveloped it would be done in stages.
He said the upgrade of AMI Stadium in Christchurch, which started in 1997, was continuing with the building of the Deans Stand.
