40-year-old stadium to make way for development

KUALA TERENGGANU: The four decade old Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah stadium in Kuala Terengganu was once a prominent structure here.

However, now with rapid development in Kuala Terengganu, the stadium has to make way for a new development project that’s meant to uplift the status of the state capital. The stadium hosted a myriad of football championships in mid 60s while national and state event were also held in the past.

It has capacity to house 25,000 spectators and served as a relief centre during monsoon seasons until the late 80s.

The redevelopment exercise of the city €“ embarked by the local authority - would see the demolition of the sports facility to make way for a recreational hub and multi-storey car park dubbed as “Dataran Kuala Terengganu”.

Kuala Terengganu City Council’s mayor Datuk Mat Razali Kassim said that the plan to develop the stadium was decided sometime ago with the opening of the new sport complex at Gong Badak replacing the stadium early this year.

“We are in the midst of outlining the propo­sal for the development of this area,” he said.

The concept he said would be the same as Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur where all the facilities would be made available to the public.

He said the planned multi storey car park could accommodate a volume of 2,000 vehicles, thus reducing the woes of car park shortages faced by locals, presently.

“We are also looking into relocating and providing alternative area for 14 vendors at the stadium before going ahead with our project,” he added.