Hong Kong’s Legislative Council Finance Committee has approved HK$62.7m (US$8.1m) in pre-construction funds for the Kai Tak Multi-purpose Sports Complex, the South China Morning Post reports.
The funds will be used for consultancy studies on technical and quantity surveying, ground investigation, and topographic and tree surveys, before actual construction can go ahead.
The approval has taken more than a decade, with the initial idea for a sports complex first put forward in 2004.
Plans for the complex have long courted controversy, with fears that the project, estimated to cost taxpayers HK$25bn (US$3.2bn) in construction, would become a white elephant.
Construction could begin in two years’ time, with the complex featuring a 50,000-seat main stadium with a retractable roof, a 5,000-seater multipurpose sports ground, and a 4,000-seater indoor multipurpose center. All the venues will be built at the former Kai Tai airport site by 2021.
